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Published on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Jared Diamond’s Ecocidal NYT Op-Ed
[Sunday's] NYT contains an outrageous op-ed piece by corporate cheerleader
Jared Diamond, who states, “I’ve discovered that while some businesses are
indeed as destructive as many suspect, others are among the world’s
strongest positive forces for environmental sustainability.” The examples
he provides? Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and Chevron.
You can read it here.
His title asks, “Will Big Business Save the Earth?” That’s not a difficult question to answer: No. No, big business will not save the Earth. Instead of being honest, though, Diamond, answers the question in the affirmative and subjects us to a poorly-argued, mind-warping, illogical and denial-drenched apology for some of the most destructive corporations that curse our planet with their existence.
His overall argument doesn’t hold up to even the most casual scrutiny. He spends the whole column arguing that we shouldn’t hate big corporations because market forces are causing them to make changes to help the planet. “Lower consumption of environmental resources saves money in the short run. Maintaining sustainable resource levels and not polluting saves money in the long run.” He attempts to show that Wal-Mart, Coca Cola and Chevron are transforming their production practices to reflect their concern for the natural world (and that this also improves their bottom line, so it’s a big win-win).
His actual agenda is revealed in the last paragraph, which is partly a plea for the government to give corporations incentives like tax breaks and money for research to facilitate these changes. But if they’re already modifying production practices to help the environment because that is good for profits, then why do they require incentives? I don’t get it.
Mainstream liberal environmentalist groups lack credibility among real environmentalists for many reasons, one of which is the presence of corporate executives on their boards, and another of which is the huge amounts of money that they accept from corporations. The World Wildlife Fund, for example, landed a $3 million contract with Chevron in the early 1990s to implement an “Integrated Conservation and Development Project” in Papua New Guinea, where Chevron’s oil drilling was vehemently resisted by the affected indigenous people. (See “Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond Greenwasher” at: http://www.counterpunch.org/proyect05092005.html).
Diamond happens to serve on the WWF board. I'm sure it's purely by coincidence that he praises Chevron’s efforts to improve the environment in his book “Collapse,” and again in this NYT op-ed piece. I can imaging him hanging out with his fellow board members, business execs who complain of being misunderstood while sending him meaningful glances brimming with unspoken promises of millions of dollars in donations. I can imagine him deciding, “Hey, these guys aren’t so bad! I’m going to convince the American people to give them some love, damn it!”
In his op-ed piece he states, “I … have had frank discussions with oil company employees at all levels. I’ve also worked with executives of mining, retail, logging and financial services companies.” In contrast, he seems to have carefully avoided speaking with even one of the countless victims of these companies. There’s not a single quote by an indigenous person in the Amazon whose forest home was leveled for oil exploration and contaminated by oil spills. Not a single statement by a farmer in India whose crops died because Coca-Cola depleted and contaminated the village ground water. Not a peep from a single exploited factory laborer in China suffering with illnesses caused by the pollution generated by producing cheap plastic crap for Wal-Mart to import and sell to us.
The motivations for these companies to reign in their destruction of the world are, without exception, self-serving and purely concerned with the bottom line. It costs too much to clean up oil spills, retrofit factories, and crush angry natives. Diamond’s sympathies are 100% in line with this, and his only desire seems to be to assist these corporations in their accumulation of profit. “We should reward companies that work to keep the planet healthy,” he urges. He doesn’t express the slightest concern for the well-being of the natural world itself or for the living beings who comprise it.
He talks about the challenges that Coca-Cola faces in finding acceptable sources of water, and tries to convince us that “Hence Coca-Cola’s survival compels it to be deeply concerned with problems of water scarcity, energy, climate change and agriculture.” But the obvious point remains unsaid: Coke is not a necessity. It is in fact harmful to those who drink it. We don’t NEED to solve the problem of how Coca-Cola obtains water, or provide incentives for them to do it less destructively, because they could just fucking stop making it. Now there’s a simple solution.
Diamond tries to confuse us by conflating slightly restrained rates of massive destruction with a net positive effect. Even if companies make changes that cause them to destroy nature at a slower speed than they have been accustomed to, this is hardly the same thing as not destroying it at all (which is what sustainability means), and the exact opposite of helping the planet heal.
As a collaborator with and propagandist for ecocidal corporations, Diamond should not be granted space to spread his lies. Both he and the NYT deserve scathing contempt for this op-ed piece.
You can read it here.
His title asks, “Will Big Business Save the Earth?” That’s not a difficult question to answer: No. No, big business will not save the Earth. Instead of being honest, though, Diamond, answers the question in the affirmative and subjects us to a poorly-argued, mind-warping, illogical and denial-drenched apology for some of the most destructive corporations that curse our planet with their existence.
His overall argument doesn’t hold up to even the most casual scrutiny. He spends the whole column arguing that we shouldn’t hate big corporations because market forces are causing them to make changes to help the planet. “Lower consumption of environmental resources saves money in the short run. Maintaining sustainable resource levels and not polluting saves money in the long run.” He attempts to show that Wal-Mart, Coca Cola and Chevron are transforming their production practices to reflect their concern for the natural world (and that this also improves their bottom line, so it’s a big win-win).
His actual agenda is revealed in the last paragraph, which is partly a plea for the government to give corporations incentives like tax breaks and money for research to facilitate these changes. But if they’re already modifying production practices to help the environment because that is good for profits, then why do they require incentives? I don’t get it.
Mainstream liberal environmentalist groups lack credibility among real environmentalists for many reasons, one of which is the presence of corporate executives on their boards, and another of which is the huge amounts of money that they accept from corporations. The World Wildlife Fund, for example, landed a $3 million contract with Chevron in the early 1990s to implement an “Integrated Conservation and Development Project” in Papua New Guinea, where Chevron’s oil drilling was vehemently resisted by the affected indigenous people. (See “Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond Greenwasher” at: http://www.counterpunch.org/proyect05092005.html).
Diamond happens to serve on the WWF board. I'm sure it's purely by coincidence that he praises Chevron’s efforts to improve the environment in his book “Collapse,” and again in this NYT op-ed piece. I can imaging him hanging out with his fellow board members, business execs who complain of being misunderstood while sending him meaningful glances brimming with unspoken promises of millions of dollars in donations. I can imagine him deciding, “Hey, these guys aren’t so bad! I’m going to convince the American people to give them some love, damn it!”
In his op-ed piece he states, “I … have had frank discussions with oil company employees at all levels. I’ve also worked with executives of mining, retail, logging and financial services companies.” In contrast, he seems to have carefully avoided speaking with even one of the countless victims of these companies. There’s not a single quote by an indigenous person in the Amazon whose forest home was leveled for oil exploration and contaminated by oil spills. Not a single statement by a farmer in India whose crops died because Coca-Cola depleted and contaminated the village ground water. Not a peep from a single exploited factory laborer in China suffering with illnesses caused by the pollution generated by producing cheap plastic crap for Wal-Mart to import and sell to us.
The motivations for these companies to reign in their destruction of the world are, without exception, self-serving and purely concerned with the bottom line. It costs too much to clean up oil spills, retrofit factories, and crush angry natives. Diamond’s sympathies are 100% in line with this, and his only desire seems to be to assist these corporations in their accumulation of profit. “We should reward companies that work to keep the planet healthy,” he urges. He doesn’t express the slightest concern for the well-being of the natural world itself or for the living beings who comprise it.
He talks about the challenges that Coca-Cola faces in finding acceptable sources of water, and tries to convince us that “Hence Coca-Cola’s survival compels it to be deeply concerned with problems of water scarcity, energy, climate change and agriculture.” But the obvious point remains unsaid: Coke is not a necessity. It is in fact harmful to those who drink it. We don’t NEED to solve the problem of how Coca-Cola obtains water, or provide incentives for them to do it less destructively, because they could just fucking stop making it. Now there’s a simple solution.
Diamond tries to confuse us by conflating slightly restrained rates of massive destruction with a net positive effect. Even if companies make changes that cause them to destroy nature at a slower speed than they have been accustomed to, this is hardly the same thing as not destroying it at all (which is what sustainability means), and the exact opposite of helping the planet heal.
As a collaborator with and propagandist for ecocidal corporations, Diamond should not be granted space to spread his lies. Both he and the NYT deserve scathing contempt for this op-ed piece.
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Show AllI thought Mr Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel was an excellent example of historical analysis which displayed insight, exhaustive research and good writing. Collapse was sadly short on the first but still contained some interesting stories.
Then I saw his TED presentation. This guy was wearing the most grotesque rug ever seen on the head of man.
So now I learn he's a corporate shill. I knew something was off.
I actually thought Guns Germs and Steel was next to nil. It recycled old ideas as if they were new and original, and gave short shrift to issues of personal moral responsibility for the material imbalances of the world. His op-ed comes as no surprise to me. Even Guns Germs and Steel was corporate-sponsored, though I forget by whom.
Hi Commentator,
If you want to read a brilliant, non-corporate, account of the catastrophes of civilization, try Ronald Wright's, "A Short History of Progress."
Enjoy,
Laurence
Laurence
I have read that book. A few years ago I was working in a book store and a man came in and ordered 17 copies. He was in his 70's and was headed out on a trip cross country to visit, and say goodbye, to old friends. He planned on giving each of them a copy of that book.
Of course I was intrigued and read it. Very nicely done.
PLease do not forget USA citizens having their wells poisoned by fraccing( injecting toxins into the ground to obtain gas and oil)..
Slowly dying and going bankrupt.
Or from Mountain top removal
US law compels corporations to act in the interest of their stockholders. The government must therefore regulate corporations to assure that they do not negatively impact the environment in the process of maximizing stock value.
As long as the US electorate continues to vote for politicians who believe in letting the market self-regulate, the corporations will keep negatively impacting the environment while coming up with ever more clever PR campaigns that cast them as positive enviromental steward role models...another example of greenwashing.
Thank you Stephanie!
I stopped reading Jared Diamond's piece as soon as I saw him laud WalMart, Chevron and Coca Cola. And thank you for giving voice to the thousands of people whose lives have been ruined by these greedy, poisonous corporations.
Honest to God: THEY'RE ALL SELLING OUT!
Thank you for exposing Diamond as the duplicitous, lying trader he's become. We're not all stupid.
Right on Stephanie McMillian! This is why I read Commondreams.org and Truthdig.org far more often than the NY Times.
Elizabeth Tjader
I had a different take on Mr Diamond's article. I saw it as a primer to a corporate world that there are many reasons "to do the right thing." He provides examples to smaller corporations that the big boys are beginning to pay attention to this and perhaps they should also. I've read Mr Diamond's books and think he is a positive influence in the world.
Your take works from certain perspectives. The "profit and growth MUST continue" and the "Incorporated Business Enterprises are forever" ones come to mind.
Unfortunately for such ideas, neither one is in harmony with sustainable culture or civilization. The article gives a nod toward this truth but assumes all readers have already thought of it on their own and so does not try to explain it well.
I won't lecture you [HA! I guess I did anyway, sorry ;)]about it here. But since you've read "Collapse" and "Guns, Germs, and Steel", perhaps you can see the correspondance between these unsustainable social assumtions and examples from history (and IIRC those books):
"Incorporated Business Enterprises are forever" is quite analogous to the extreme form of ancestor-cult that contributed to the Inka decline. Each King/Emperor/Inka was considered INCARNATELY immortal. So when he died, his mummy retained all of his wealth in palaces, precious metals and jewels, even some land, servants, and soldiers. The mummy certainly retained the Inka's social prestige and elite retinue of family-based preists/preistesses, wives, pages, squires etc. When the Spaniard's diseases and warfare brought chaos to the Inka Empire, the violent and murderous squabbling between these retinues to the "undead" did much to turn a predicament into a disaster.
The lesson here is that Incorporated Business Enterprises, like Great Inkas, have their unique time, place, and function. If attempts are made to maintain them beyond that time, bad things will happen. In other words, if an enterprise that makes profit by adding carbonation and sugar/corn syrup to water is faced with a Global shortage of water, perhaps the time for adding sh!t to water for profit should come to an end.
"Profit and Capital Growth must continue" is reminiscent of the trap the people of Easter Island fell into: the continuation of a social habit beyond the constructive/destructive threshold. At some point before they sealed their doom, it seems reasonable to assume that SOMEONE said or thought "based on the time it takes these trees to grow, we must be getting near the point where cutting more down will endanger our ability to have more in the future -and we really, REALLY need them for canoe-making- maybe we should chill for a bit". If this happened, such a warning was not heeded, and the fate of those was people sealed.
The lesson here is that on a finite planet -as on a finite island- resources are finite as well. Transforming these resources into Profit and Capital Growth removes them from nature just as surely as transforming trees into boats and statues does for those. Constant use and growth in use is unsustainable. Only the right over all pace of use and flux between growth and contraction of total use is possible in a finite system.
---
The only real problem with Diamond's "primer to the corporate world that there are many reasons 'to do the right thing'" is that it ISN'T one. The "right thing" for the executives and stockholders of enterprises such as Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola "to do" at this point is to wind those enterprises down. The model employed in them is no longer viable or profitable without creating more harm than good. The capital assests should be sold off to smaller and more sustainable enterprises, the executives should retire in comfort and the stockholders should reap their profit.
The reason these things DON'T happen seems to be simple greed combined with the mistaken perspectives/assumptions tackled above.
/unintended lecture OFF.
-matti.
I've often thought about the islanders cutting down their last trees. I don't think we're quite to that point yet, but in some areas we're getting close. The problem at the moment is that there is not the understanding or the political will to do a great deal. In my case, for instance, Coke has dissolved much of the enamel off my teeth. I respond by drinking less instead of the logical plan of never touching the stuff again. We are but poor humans, after all.
trees are an interesting example, as they are so visible...on an island with only one tree left, you know you're cutting the last one...the danger we're in now, is we're not dealing with just trees...we're dealing with the endangering of a large number of systems and entities, many of which are either gaseous, or very small, or very large, and not visible to us at all...
in other words, if the ability to see that you're cutting down the last tree on the island isn't enough to stop you from doing so, what's to stop us from destroying those things we are unable to see? only foresight and prudence...
Hello Dubet,
When peak oil has priced gas at $8.00 and rising, Walmart megastores, and mall culture in general, will collapse. No one will be able to afford to go there. And solar and wind will replace Chevron, after a period, however, of devastation and chaos. Not quite as obvious as cutting down the last tree on the island, but almost. (Although actually we don't really know which will arrive first, peak oil or climate devastation.)
Why don't our CEO's and their hireling politicians see it? Because when you are making tens or hundreds of millions a year you are quite sure that you can buy your way out of any catastrophe, as long as you can keep on increasing your reserves. (Case in point, why did Goldman Sachs receive more doses of swine flu vaccine than many hospitals?)
As long as the fate of the planet is in the hands of billionaires who think they are exempt from the sorrows of the common herd, we will not escape the coming meltdown. Economic democracy is the only way out. It's not just a good idea. Our survival depends on it.
Unfortunately, however, the corporatocracy is able to buy not only politicians and mass media, but hireling intellectuals as well. Can we muster the solidarity to overcome these forces?
I read that hideous article as well, thanks for taking the time to expose his motivations.
Mr. Diamonds article gave me that sickly feeling you get sometimes when you read an article in the NY Times and wonder what the author's motivation was for writing it.
In the piece he fails to mention the massive quantities of energy required to get all that plastic WalMart junk to the US from China. Also, he doesn't mention the pollution in China and the terrible living/working conditions of many of the Chinese workers.
It was a NY Times OP Ed piece so you need to take it with the grain of salt, unfortunately many people don't have/use other references to compare it to.
Jared Diamond.
Just one more mindless jerk who will be against a bullet pocked wall in the near future.
Yes, I'm sure he deserves to die for disagreeing with you.
No wonder liberal is a dirty word in the US, thanks for helping with that.
Galenwainwright.
Just one more mindless jerk who seems to be saying he wants to be putting people against a bullet pocked wall.
Or were you just making a prophecy based on your sociological expertise?
I basically agree with the sentiments expressed by Ms. McMillan, but I wish she had used different wording or a different frame. Instead of using phrasing such as "destroy nature" and "helping the planet heal," it might be more helpful to speak in terms of restoring the natural human habitat or human harmony with the rest of earth nature. Humans are part of earth nature, and the focus should be on activity that is inconsistent with maintaining the habitat that humans have survived in, and developed some degree of harmony with, for tens of thousands of years. We humans are all connected to the whole of earth nature, but our connections to other humans are several orders of magnitude greater than our connections to non-human nature, and so wording that implies that the latter connections are equal to the former can be off-putting for others and self-defeating for those concerned with environmental protection.
Putting humans first is not inconsistent with maintaining the ecosystem or environmental protection as human quality of life is well-correlated with the maintenance of the ecosystems of the past millennia. It is capitalism that is inconsistent with protecting the environment and maintaining the habitat that humans evolved in. Actually, these issues fit very well into a framing based on social class and the war between the classes, as the destructive environmental practices of concern are for the benefit of the economic elite or at least the economically advantaged and are at the expense of the great mass of humanity, as the habitat a great many people need and share is destroyed.
The non-elites are losing a worldwide class war to the economic elites, in part because the non-elites lack solidarity, and connecting issues to this class war and to a common human cause provides greater opportunities to develop the solidarity necessary to prevail.
Excellent post...
I basically agree with the sentiments that you have expressed here (once you get past the stylistic thang).
But. Arguing for a different writing style seems besides the point. It detracts from a writers work when we harp on stylistic differences. This is an argument I hear over and over again, " I don't like their writing style." or, "She's/He's not a very good writer." which sometimes seems used as an excuse to avoid reading or considering the over all ideas contained in the work.
Interestingly (to me at least), I have heard these types of sentiments in relation to a particular sorta group of writers:
Derrick Jensen
Ward Churchill
Daniel Quinn
Lierre Keith
Noam Chomsky
and now here, Stephanie Mcmillan
I wonder sometimes if it's not the writing style, but the message contained therein?
Chomsky is a dreadful writer, and a worse speaker.
But he has plenty to say that should be heard.
You know, I've never heard anybody say that before. But I agree.
It is more the framing than the writing style that bothered me. Why make it into "bad humans harming poor Mother Earth," which the corporate predators can easily tweak into arguments to deny the great majority the adequate resources for a decent quality of life (e.g., humans are evil so they have no value so why care about the welfare of the multitudes)? Why not present it as a problem related to the depravity of capitalism and of the elite economic classes it inevitably creates and discuss how curbing capitalism can be better for the welfare of the great majority of humans and for preserving ecosystems?
Lest we forget, corporations once risked losing their charters for failing to serve the public good, the Founders having known well the threat of corporate power to the great experiment. We have suffered irreversible and unnecessary environmental damage while waiting for this false "enlightened self-interest" of these artificial entities, foolishly surrendering the power of the law in favor of our meager power of consumer choice. Corporations are powerful -- no one doubts their ABILITY to effect positive change, but how fatally foolish to bet the farm (or the Earth) on their will to it.
Indeed. It is time to get rid of "corporate personhood".
Or at least make that "corporate personhood" more fully analogous with actual personhood by use of a "corporate death penalty" or other charter suspension/revocation schemes.
When an actual person does serious harm to their fellows or the Law, they face -sometimes quite severe- social or legal consequences. These include the suspension or revocation of Rights and perhaps the ending of life itself.
Yet, when an Incorporated Business Enterprise does the same, it faces merely harsh words and financial liabilities that are easily shuttled to the "cost" side of the accounting ledger or pased on to customers.
If "corporate personhood" cannot be ended, I say it should at least be made COMPLETE.
-matti.
Great commentary, Stephanie. Diamond and the NYTimes does deserve our contempt for having published Diamond's corporate-loving propaganda.
Diamond says that 'we should reward companies that work to keep the planet healthy'. . . if we are to believe that the market-driven economy is a viable way to manage the earth's resources, then why isn't PROFIT enough reward for these companies that are supposedly working to keep the planet healthy?
These companies are not working to keep the planet healthy. They are working to keep their profits healthy. Since when did profits conflate to 'keeping the planet healthy'.
Yes,Stephanie, I read that crap about poor Coca-Cola not being able to find enough water . . . duh!! Nobody needs Coca-Cola. Everyone, even the poorest peoples on the planet, need water. If poor Coca-Cola wanted to do good, they would stop making Coca-Cola.
And don't get me started on the insane drivel he wrote about Wal-Mart.
I was reminded, reading Diamond's Op-Ed, of the Mad Hatter tea party in Alice in Wonderland.
The real danger, sadly, is not in the specific things Diamond said. The real danger is that many people read that kind of propaganda and the propaganda has its desired effect. Lots of people, I guarantee you, read that Op-Ed piece and came away feeling vaguely positive about those corporations and feeling, vaguely, like, gee, maybe Wal-Mart and Chevron aren't so bad. . .
Chevron not so bad?!!! Does anyone know what Chevron does in Nigeria to rape that country?!
When I read Collapse - and I would point out that there are some good parts to it - I tried not to cringe as he cherry picked examples of environmental activism with Chevron, one of the world's worst corporate criminal entities. His example of Papua New Guinea and the mines and oil extraction that is going on there actually is a great example of what is wrong with his argument. What made Chevron be slightly more responsible in Papua New Guinea was the people who lived there. They are entirely dependent on their environment and in previous attempts to exploit it, they had violently resisted. But, Papua New Guinea is a society based on tribal democracy! The dictatorships or psuedo-democratic countries of the rest of the world are not so democratic. In western countries narrow interests are almost always served, not the interests of the people. Thus, the largest flaw in his argument is the idea that in western countries democratic interests are served. There is almost no evidence of that.
Other flaws in his argument include:
1) He over-estimates the ability of consumers to made "Green" decisions. That assumes consumers have been given enough good information to make "green" decisions. Once again, this is never the case. The whole role of advertising is to confuse consumers into purchasing things they don't need. So, Exxon, IBM, and Whole Foods may have commercials that say they are doing "green" things, but the reality is that is just propaganda because they know the population supports the environmental movement.
2) He over estimates the ability of corporations to think in the long-term. Sure, they are thinking long-term, but they are LEGALLY required to maximize short-term profits for their Wall st. investors, so, that is going to always come first. I can't think of one corporation that has done the right thing and developed a sustainable long-term business plan for the environment. Why bother? The CEOs and powers that be of Exxon, Chevron, and the like will make literally billions of $$$ and the consequences of their actions won't be truly felt by western civ. until they are dead and gone.
We are leaving a truly ghastly legacy to our children and especially their children. Mr. Diamond is naive to think the same institution structure that wouldn't put seat belts in cars, that tried to convince people cigarettes are safe, and that manufactures "needs" amongst consumers so that they purchase things that they don't need will somehow save the day. As in Papau New Guinea, the people who will save the day, will be the people, not the power structures.
I'll read it presently, but Mr. Daimond is just arging from the so-called, pecularly USAn, "libertarian" perspective, whereby if we just rely on th magic of "free markets" (in other words, the status quo) all environmental ills will be magically healed.
The reality is that these so-called radical libertarians, some goimg so far as to call themselves "anarchist", are really just spouting apologietics for a deeply reactionaly preservaton of the concentration of wealth.
A good, detailed critique, by way of thise who call themselves "free-market anarchists", is here:
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secFcon.html
Or from non anarchist, less academic perspective here:
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/libertarian.html
Hahaha... Libertarian in the USA = total and complete tyranny of the wealthy and powerful. How is that for the manipulation of language.
I would point out that anarchism has many shades. One of which, Libertarian Socialism, advocates for the elimination of all illegitimate power structures and where people have influence over decisions based on how they are affected by those decisions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
It is a much more sane version of anarchism.
Yes, I'm very familiar with libertarian socialism. It is the basis of the Parecon idea of albert and Hahnel.
But NO form of anarchism can EVER be based on freedom of markets and property ownership, with no other rights recognized. Wht this effectviely means is you have rights only to the extent that you have property or money. Of course, this is just the really-existing capitalist status quo. The rich have freedom from all forms of "coercion" or as Ayn Rand said "initiation of force", while for the propertyless, "freedom" is limited to the choice of selling their labor at as low an amout as their boss demands, or starve. In other words the same "freedom" one has when a highway robber holfd a gun to your fucking head. And they say their "free markets" are "non-coercive" whay positively pure, unalloyed BULLSHIT!
>>>But NO form of anarchism can EVER be based on freedom of markets and property ownership, with no other rights recognized. Wht this effectviely means is you have rights only to the extent that you have property or money.
Good point. And it doesn't matter how this property came about in the first place - whether it was stolen from others or by putting a fence around public land when no one was paying attention, or to "buy" a vast property at throwaway prices, authorized by a "government" which is even kind enough to build roads and water supply to the said property at public expense. Essentially, finders are keepers - who then go on to become masters, and then want the government to keep off.
Good point. Right libertarians and Randian anarcho-capitalists have hijacked and distorted much of the anarchist thinking, turning it into a "greed is good" mentality. The class of thinkers on the Libertarian Socialist side of anarchism are Chomsky, Thoreau, Warren, Spooner, Proudhon, Emma Goldman, Voltarine de Claire, and many others. I would also include Derrick Jensen and the author of this article, Stephanie McMillan, in the social minded anarchist category.
Lest we forget reality here....humanity will not stop global degradation without a change in the behavior of big business. I believe that was the message he was getting across. The elite of every society make decisions that affect the rest of that said society whether we like it or not and to suggest that we all become luddites in a big "love-in", getting rid of technology and science in favor of some utopian world where we all grow our own organic vegetables and drink clean water is at best, a damaging dream-like stupor. The reality is we have to deal with what we have. History clearly demonstrates that mankind was never a noble savage, icluding indigenous peoples who regularily made species go extinct and ravaged the land through, for example, slash-and-burn. Going back is not the answer; going forward means dealing with the realities we have and that means reigning in big business through government regulations and changing their behaviors by what we buy and don't buy, what we as a citizenry do or don't do to demand this change. Big business can help the earth and the creatures on it; what won't help is denial of the facts about how we humans negotiate with each other, particularily our elite. That means, we the people, have to educate ourselves, become more scienfically literate and become more engaged in society and the decisions we let our elite make....yes, LET our elite make.
God this post is sad.
Do you realize that you are arguing from a wholly ANTI-democratic perspective?
In representative democracy we do not have "elites", we have individuals raised to temporary power by the will of the people as a whole.
Even if our system has been hijacked by your "big business" folks and they have formed a de facto "elite", this is STILL only a temporary situation and arguments for, and assumptions of, its permanence are NOT realistic, but rather capitulationist!
If a small group of men with guns takes over a bank, do the police simply put up their hands and say "Well, they're sittin' on the loot, so I guess its their's now." ? No! They employ their VASTLY SUPERIOR power in removing the criminals from the bank and restoring the lawful and socially agreed upon situation.
You deride "(g)oing back" as "not the answer" at the same time that you advocate the assumption that we are NOT a democratic State, but rather an oligarchical one held at the whim of the "elite"! What could be more "(g)oing back" than capitulating to a return to the situation before the Libertine Revolutions of the 18TH CENTURY?!?
Ridiculous.
-matti.
Excellent post, saves me the trouble of trying to write something similar. I think we essentially choose our elites, sometimes directly by voting, other times through other means (economic rewards, meritocracies), so we have leaders (elites) and we should try to make the system of creating them to be more democratic or responsive to the interests of the people.
Speaking of people, they are the big problem other than corporations. Even if we did not have corporations, we have to stop population growth and that has not even come up in the treaty discussions related to greenhouse gases. Either we voluntarily stop population growth, or the standard of living will decline to the point where population growth is halted by starvation or other unpleasantness.
"But the obvious point remains unsaid: Coke is not a necessity. It is in fact harmful to those who drink it. We don’t NEED to solve the problem of how Coca-Cola obtains water, or provide incentives for them to do it less destructively, because they could just fucking stop making it. Now there’s a simple solution. "
Most things that humans use are strictly speaking not "necessary". Let's stick to beverages for example. Water is of course necessary. No other beverage, is strictly speaking "necessary". Wine is strictly speaking completely unnecessary. So too beer. Whiskey. Etc. Tea. Coffee. Should we fucking stop making all of them? Now there's a simple solution.
Let's say that somehow we do stop fucking making Coke. Does anyone believe that no one will make some other type of similar drink as a replacement? Does anyone seriously believe that people are only going to be content to drink water, or only drinks that are beneficial, defining beneficial as beneficial to physical health?
Simply screaming that something is not necessary and we should fucking stop making it gets the discussion absolutely nowhere.
Historically beer and wine were safer to drink than water for the simple fact that they were free of the common diseases and parasites found in untreated water.
It was only with the advent of mass water treatment after a cholera pandemic in 1800's London did 'drinking water' become a public health concept.
And now major Corporations want to meter every single drop of potable water so as to derive the greatest profit. They are already doing this in much of Africa, and attempts have been made to do the same in the US. So far in the US, none have really taken hold. Yet.
Water is going to become more expensive than oil, if it isn't already. I believe, as Galenwainsright has said, that the attempts at privatizing the sources of H20 indicate the importance it holds for all of us on this planet.
This issue should concern us all and Stephanie's post suggests that w/ Jared Diamond's op-ed in the Times.
Yes, historically beer and wine were safer to drink, hence "small" beers, beers that were low in alcohol, hence watering wine when drinking it, since drinking wine straight, unwatered, or drinking high alcohol beer, throughout the day was completely impractical.
HOWEVER, let's not pretend that the only reason people have been drinking beer for thousands of years is because the concept of making water safe to drink was not understood. Otherwise, only "small" beers would have been made and drunk.
Pretty much every human culture has some form of fermented alcoholic drink, whether beer, wine, sake, sochu, rice wine, mead, arak, vodka, kumis, palm wine / toddy etc; whether made from barley, wheat, grapes, apples, honey, potatoes, palm tree sap, mare's milk etc.
Let's not pretend that the only reason humans drink such drinks is the dangers of drinking untreated water and the lack of potable water.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Coke.I'm not defending attempts to meter every single drop of potable water for profit.
I'm saying that even if we do stop making Coke, humans will continue to drink drinks that aren't water, drinks that aren't strictly speaking necessary, drinks that are strictly speaking more wasteful of water than just drinking plain water I'm saying that humans will continue to want things that are strictly speaking not necessary. I'm saying that it isn't as simple as saying that something isn't necessary, let's stop making and using that thing. Try convincing the billions of people all over the world who drink various types of soda, various types of alcoholic drinks to switch to drinking water and only water.
Or put it another way, how does the author, or how do you, want to define "necessary"?
The point is (obviously!) not just that Coca Cola is "unnecessary" and therefor, simply on the basis of that, we should stop it.
The point is that Coca Cola is DEVASTATING, and at the same time is UNNECESSARY, so there is NO POSSIBLE GOOD REASON to maintain the Coca Cola corporation.
Making beer is not inherently devastating. Billions of people can sustainably drink beer and wine that is responsibly and sustainably produced. There are POSSIBLE GOOD REASONS to keep producing beer and wine. Not so with Coca Cola.
It is not just about defining "necessary". The definition of "horrific" is also important. Is this not obvious? Why are you making this argument?
The article wasn't about the evils of softdrinks (or other unnecessary concoctions). Maybe you should write that article.
She mentions coca cola because Mr Diamond mentions coca cola. And because her article is about what he wrote, that would probably be the reason why she didn't do an in depth expose of beverages.
It sorta looks to me that her use of the f-word has distracted you from being able to stay on topic.
My point isn't about the evils of softdrinks or other concoctions that some people might define as unnecessary. My point is about what is "necessary", and what people should do about unnecessary things.
Which is on topic. Since her solution appears to be that anything she deems as unnecessary should be ceased.
I see what you're saying.
Still, it seems a stretch to conclude that,"anything she deems as unnecessary should be ceased." from her belief that coca cola is unnecessary. I think that she is (correctly) stating that coca cola is unnecessary. This is her belief. Mr. Diamond's belief that Coke is,"deeply concerned with problems of water scarcity, energy, climate change and agriculture.” which of course they are in a dollars & cents kinda way. Not an Earthly concern.
What I take from her "solution" of doing away with coke, is that it is a better answer than to support coca cola because they are so "concerned" with the environment. That's all. I don't see where she is calling fror the eradication of everything unnecessary from that.
Stanley Diamond is saying we should support coke. Stephanie Mcmillan is saying it would be better to not only not support them, but to stop making the stuff because not only is it "unecessary", but it is a major contributor tho the very problems that they (and Diamond) are purporting to be alarmed about. Hence, if they were really so concerned about they destruction, maybe they ought to stop destroying.
Sorry if you don't like that word. It's not a pretty one.
Ultimately her point is that they are not comncerned about the destruction of the Earth. They are concerned with the destruction of their ability to make money.
Like I said, stop making Coke. I'm not defending the Coca Cola corporation in any way.
If her point is that the Coca Cola corporation should be banned, disbanded because it causes serious damage to the environment, then I don't disagree.
In that case, I probably misread her.
from the article:
"We don’t NEED to solve the problem of how Coca-Cola obtains water, or provide incentives for them to do it less destructively, because they could just fucking stop making it. Now there’s a simple solution."
I see rfolh disagrees with me, but I love this quote! Does it move the discussion forward? Yes, it does, because it leads to the nest question: why don't we stop making it?
we don't stop making it because we need to do something to earn money to afford our shelter, and food and water...this is why we do so many, many of the horrible things we do to the planet...why do we make plastic pineapples? same reason...to stick with the Coke example: how insane is it to sacrifice public drinking water for income then used to purchase bottled drinking water at hugely inflated prices over what Coke is paying for THE SAME WATER?
the problem is in the requirement of money to live...the privatization of the physical planet...the title-holding bank and landlord...the fact that homelessness is a word...
this planet is our home...all of ours...to share, not buy...your money's no good here...there's no need...
Why we don't stop making it is what I wished the author had asked, instead of simply screaming that we should stop making it.
Why do people want things that are strictly speaking not necessary for human survival? Take Coke. You say that humans make Coke simply because we need to do something to earn money to afford our shelter and food and water. You tie that to the requirement for money, and the privatisation of the planet, private property. The same can be said of wine, beer, tea, coffee, etc. All these things are more wasteful of public water than just drinking plain water.
Is your argument that in the event that the title-holding bank and landlord are done away with, that in the event the concept of private property is abolished, humans will switch to a lifestyle of only drinking water? That they will cease to want things that are strictly speaking unnecessary?
I appreciate your response...
While I agree that some products, like Coke, for example, were created because some Norte Americano guy realized cocaine was a) enjoyable, b) addictive, and c) hard to get outside the tropics...the next trick was to figure out how to get people to take it, people of all ages, without the stigma attached to 'straight' sniffing, then buy more...lots and lots more...I don't really know the details of the Coke story, but one could Google...
he sweetened water, and put the cocaine in it...fine...
what I'm addressing is: why doesn't the average worker stop working for a company that does things that harm the planet once we understand the ramifications...
if we understand the dwindling resource that is fresh, potable water, and grasp the huge amounts of this precious resource required for the manufacture of Coke, for example, why don't we shut down the Coca-Cola operation? because of jobs...why are jobs more important than the environment? because we have no mechanism for living without money...we are surrounded by such a mechanism, the living world, but we are prevented from living within the world by each other...the physical world has been sequestered, not to be allowed anyone without the delivery of money, goods or services to those armed individuals manning the fences and gates...this is the fundamental issue...
does this mean no one would ever sweeten water, or ferment fruits or grains? no...just not commercially, not using vital resources in lieu of needing others, and not beyond the planet's ability to recover...
who decides these things? the reality is that each individual has the ability to decide for themselves whether to value the planet or not, or to behave accordingly...perhaps local tribunals...
the idea would be to make valuing the planet's infinite variety pleasurable...make society pleasurable enough on a daily basis that remaining within the good graces of such a society, by maintaining harmony with the planet, would self-serve as reinforcement...I strongly, and seriously, suggest greater use of sex and marijuana to assist with this pleasure...
peace to you...
Ok, I see your argument. I certainly wish your vision comes true.
dubet,
Excellent post. More in this vein, please.