From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Sun Oct 29 2006 - 12:04:44 EST
Published on libcom.org <http://libcom.org>
Mike Davis "Planet of Slums" Treason Pamphlet
These three articles by Californian Marxist Mike Davis deal with the
respective situations of the world's richest and poorest people. For two
billion of the poorest there is life in the mega-slums and for some of the
richest there is life in the artificial paradise of Dubai. "Planet of
Slums" is about this new situation of mega-slums whose inhabitants are
largely outside the global circuits of production and what this might mean
for the class struggle. Davis writes: "The global growth of a vast
informal proletariat, moreover, is a wholly original structural
development unforeseen by either classical Marxism or modernization
pundits ...a true global residuum lacking the strategic economic power of
socialized labor, but massively concentrated in a shanty-town world
encircling the fortified enclaves of the urban rich." 'The Pentagon as
Global Slumlord'is about how the US military attempts to police some of
the world's mega-slums. 'Sinister Paradise' is about one of those
"fortified enclaves of the urban rich" which is being built and serviced
by imported workers who can be deported for striking or forming unions.
Mike Davis is the author of numerous books most of which are well worth
reading. They include two excellent books about Los Angeles, City of
Quartz and Ecology of Fear and Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines
and the Making of the Third World.
Attachment Size (url below, JL)
Planet of Slums1.pdf [1] 309.32 KB
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Source URL:
<http://libcom.org/library/mike-davis-planet-of-slums-treason-pamphlet>
Links:
[1] <http://libcom.org/files/Planet of Slums1.pdf>
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