[Marxism] The Prophet Misarmed: Trotsky, Ecology and Sustainability

[S. Artesian]

Yes, but that musing by Trotsky is not the the thrust of Irvine's article. 
Shane is spot-on in his response to the article-- I don't think I could have 
said it any better, but that won't stop me, of course, from saying something 
not quite as good.

Just that-- I'm not about to deploy the old "prisoner of his times" 
response, but these questions are historical-- they have a history.  If 
Trotsky's mechanistic musings were embraced, without critical reevaluation 
and development, by his followers-- that's the fault of his followers, a 
fault conditioned by their history, their development, and their own 
misapprehensions-- not by Trotsky.

Marx left certain things unclear; Marx actually contradicts himself in 
different passages in the same manuscript; Lenin got things wrong lots of 
the time, except when getting it right counted the most;  Engels made 
mistakes, even in his rendering of Marx's manuscripts... etc. etc. etc.  And 
so what?  Where is the responsibility-- with them for not being perfect?

The environmental destruction that takes place occurs as a result of the 
demands of profit, of the world markets-- or in the case of the horrible 
program for cotton production in the fSU in response against the demands of 
the world market.

In reading Irvine's article,  I started thinking-- "this is like blaming 
Marx for China's role in the logging of Indonesia's forests."

And then I got to this:

Overpopulation

Yet the key dimension to the ecological crisis is not "bad" technology nor 
"maldevelopment"/"maldistribution". It is human numbers. Given that mere 
survival depends upon a certain level of consumption of water, food, heat, 
and shelter, it is perfectly reasonable to base discussion of the issue in 
quantitative terms, although in actuality the vast majority of people want 
more than just the basic necessities. But those very basics, just like the 
trappings of more affluent lifestyles, all come from the environment whose 
capacity to supply them as well as absorb waste by-products is not infinite.

___________

Which was followed by this:

To repeat, numbers do count. In the words of Anne and Paul Ehrlich, 
"individuals who oppose mild and humane restrictions on reproduction now are 
encouraging an enormous further loss of both human freedom and human lives 
in the future.... Anyone who is fighting the provision of people with 
contraception and getting family sizes down is simply fighting very hard to 
get millions or hundreds of millions to die early, in very nasty ways".

________

Note how Irvine links those who oppose official state sanctioned 
restrictions on reproduction  NOW [emphasis added} with those who oppose 
contraception...

And it was after that that I stopped reading....

I'll take Trotsky, Engels,  warts, carbuncles, mechanism and all over this 
neo-Malthusian crap that winds up supporting the current ruling class when 
and if it decides to impose "mild" and "humane" restrictions on 
reproduction.

Hey, Irvine-- go f--k yourself, no worries about reproduction that way.

----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Louis Proyect" <lnp3 at panix.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Prophet Misarmed: Trotsky,Ecology and 
Sustainability