>I knew someone would be dull enough to say something like this. None
>of these three are saying that there are no needs, no hunger, no
>poverty. But do you really think that poverty in a capitalist nation
>is produced by lack of food and water? Do you really think that
>there are just not enough resources in America to feed everyone?
>
Sorry to be dull Chris, but I don't know, you tell me. I think that there
are enough resources in the world for everyone in the WORLD to live a
comfortable life working some minimum set of hours. I also beleive,
however, that as some people take more than what is needed to be
comfortable, others must lose their comfortableness and live simply with
basics: food, water, housing. But we see in the world today that many
people do not even have these basics. Theproblem, I admit, is not
necessarily a lack of these bacis. Sometimes there are problems with
distribution. Many goods that are sent overseas to "third-world" countries
get there but are not distributed throughout the population, but are kept
by a few. Now there is somotehitng to be said about living with just the
basics. I mean really, who needs a car, except that we are made to need a
car by the society in which we live. But this ohnoly takes more from the
environment and harms the enviornment more. When talking about matters of
distribution, we must be concerned with more than just how people are
affected.
But that is not central to the discussion right now. The question is how
much resources do we really have and what is the rate at which we use these
resources. At current consumption rates, I read, the following: "global
resources of petroleum will last 31 yrs, natural gas, 52 yrs, and
bituminous coal 175 yrs." (The Human Polity, 2nd edition, Kay Lawson, p.
120, 1989). I also remember readin somewhere that we only have about
thirty years of fresh, clean water available (sory can't rememebr or locate
source). SO I thikn that we do need to face the reality of scant
resources.
If we don't then we are left with arguments like Gauthier's in
MNorals by Agreement, or Nozick's in Anarchy, State and Utopia. Badsing
their arguments on Locke's proviso, they hold that people can accumlate
meterial goods as they wish. But Locke's proviso assumes an infinite
supply of natural resources. He wrote in the early days of the Aemericas,
when there seemed to be such an infinite supply. But hasn't the near
extinction of buffalo tuahgt us differently?
So, again, I'm sorry for being dull, but we do have a lack of
resources on our hands.
But your question was really two wasn't it: 1) do we have a lack of
resources, and 2) is poverty in a capitalistic country caused by lack of
resources. To the first I answer yes, and to the second no. Poverty in a
captialist country is caused by the distribution crreated by a free or
nearly free market. And as mor epeople gain weralth, they gain power over
others which allows them to gain more wealth and enslave more people. We
in America are too stupid to realize this because we can sit in front of
the TV every night or because we can watch a bunch of winers complain that
they aren't earning enough for hitting a small ball 1 out of 3 times. We
are also oblivious to the fact that much of our wealth is extracted
(stolen) from other countries, or how else do we explain that the U.S. has
60% of the world's wealth?
SO though I agree with you on one point, Chris, I disagree on
another, and when we separate out the conflated issues in your question,
then I think we have to say Marx and Deleuze and Guaitarri were just wrong
(besides, what the hell were D & G talking about most of the time?).
Jeff
JLN
jlnich1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Department of Philosophy
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY. 40509