Profit and loss

[Mike Weaver]

Jbor:

>  I'm not so sure that dialectical process is compatible with
>utopianism.

You may not be sure; me, I'm certain it isn't!

IMO totalitarianism is the modern flipside of utopianism. That your enemies 
are blocking the way to paradise is a pretty fine justification for 
extermination.
Anyway who's talking about utopianism? Not me, Doug or any of the other 
supporters of the anti-capitalist movement on this list as far as I've 
noticed.  Certainly there are plenty of people about who think that
a - revolution WILL happen in their lifetime,
b - that revolution will bring about an entirely just world.
I haven't noticed anyone in this discussion saying anything related to 
these sentiments.

Personally I go along with Stephen Jay Gould - reviewing Fritjof Capra's 
The Turning Point:
" We may develop a new paradigm, as Capra believes, but it will not produce 
a nirvana of self-benefiting co-operation. The world remains too complex. I 
see no intrinsic bar to a decent life for all, but I doubt that we will 
ever escape sacrifice, struggle and compromise".
That is in _Urchin In the Storm_ which also contains, in Chapter 9 
"Nurturing Nature", an excellent look at the value of dialectical thinking.

> > Ever since capitalism became a recognisable system on this planet, people
> > have been making proposals of one kind or another for ways to alleviate the
> > destruction that chasing profit causes.
>
>And isn't this precisely the purpose of all those international and
>cross-sectorial trade talks in Uruguay, Seattle, Melbourne, Montreal?

No. These talks are capitalists and their governmental supporters working 
out ways of improving the workings of the current system, which will 
continue to run on exploitation, greed and the division of our species into 
rulers and ruled, and the sacrifice of the lives and welfare of many of the 
latter for the comfort and easy living of the former.

>I'll
>ask my question again: taking into account the current state of the global
>economy and international balance of power, what *positive*, *practical*
>alternatives are being proposed by the anti-globalisation lobby?

Depends what you mean by practical. Those in power will dismiss any 
proposal that significantly diminishes their power however *practical* it 
might be if implemented.
If you mean *practical if implemented* there are probably  thousands of 
co-operative/ democratic-socialist schemes/dreams being honed to perfection 
at this very moment in every corner of the globe. The catch of course is 
that none of the dreamers are in any position to implement any of them.

Struggles for change on this scale have to work out the practical 
alternatives as the struggle develop. Look at the history of previous 
social/political revolutions, they start with utopian alternatives, with 
incoherent challenge and gut level resistance and only develop viable 
alternatives as the revolutionary forces grow strong enough to aim to take 
power. I hardly think the anti-capitalist globalization lobby has attained 
that level yet!