(OPE-L) Re: The Amish in a fossil-fuel depleting world -- Nader/Camejo

From: Gerald A. Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Wed Sep 29 2004 - 08:46:59 EDT


Hi Paul Z.

> Since Sept. 13, the Nader/Camejo web site carries every day a new
> 'featured national asset', today being The Amish.  Without saying so but
> connected to yesterday's press release for the Nader/Camejo Campaign --
> "Global Climate Change Requires Us to Break Our Addiction to Fossil
> Fuels", it offers a way forward as humanity destroys millions of years of
> fossil fuel build-up.

While Amish communities can not be considered to be "Utopian
Socialist"  -- perhaps "Utopian Capitalist" might be a better description --
the belief that the Amish experience and lifestyle can be generalized
while the capitalist mode of production dominates and this "offers a
way forward" could be subjected to a critique similar to Marx's critique
of Utopians like Owen and Fourier, don't you think?  Of course,
many radical environmentalists -- including a lot of my anarchist
friends -- reject that critique of Marx and defend Utopianism.
The ideology of the Green Party is, at least partially, self-consciously
Utopian, I think.

"Is small beautiful?" is a related question.

In solidarity, Jerry


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