Editorial
The
main theme of this issue discussed in the first section, is the relation between
ethics, ecology and the democratic project. Regina Cochrane’ s
important critique of naturalistic ethics aims to show the problematic character
of the attempt to ground left-libertarian ecopolitics in an ‘objective’
naturalism. Readers of D&N are of course aware of the thesis developed in
this journal (vol 1 no 2) that any attempt to ground the liberatory project for
an inclusive democracy on ‘objective’ grounds, like those of dialectical
materialism or correspondingly dialectical naturalism, is both non-feasible and
non-desirable. However, whereas D&N’s
assessment of such an endeavour as problematic was based on the view that
an ‘objective’ reason (either of the positivist or the dialectical type) on
social phenomena is impossible, leading to the need for a democratic (i.e.
intersubjective) rationalism, the author follows a different direction. Her aim
is to show the inherently contradictory nature of an ‘objective’ naturalism
on the basis of the critiques of naturalistic ethics by Hegel and especially
Kant. The conclusion she derives is that, on the way towards a non-naturalistic
left-libertarian ecopolitics, we have to abandon Marx’s as well as
Bookchin’s overtaking of instrumental reason (reason of empiricism) by
objective reason (dialectical
reason). Agreeing with Adorno, she calls for a negative dialectics in which
instrumental and objective reason co-exist in necessary dialectical tension, so
that objective reason will not “once again lapse into a suppression of
difference, individuality, and the particularity of the oppressed”. However,
although this is an important step forward on the way to build a democratic
rationalism one may argue that it is only a halfway house. What is in question
is the very existence of an ‘objective’ reason in social phenomena,
something this approach considers as both feasible and desirable, as long as it
is in ‘dialectical tension’ with the reason of empiricism/positivism.
Furthermore, one may raise serious reservations on whether the way to avoid
objective reason lapsing again into a suppression of difference and
individuality lies in seeing it in dialectical tension with instrumental reason
rather than in seeing reason as part of a democratic process within the context
of a genuine democracy —as a structure and a process of self-institution.
Margarita
Alario shows clearly the contradictions of environmental policies as well as
the way in which corporate interests manage to obscure the links between
environmental and health issues. Furthermore, the author aptly highlights the
ethical implications of ‘development’ by emphasising that
disempowered groups in society bear a disproportionate burden of its
environmental and health costs. However, the author’s adoption of Beck’s
analysis (albeit a critical one) leads to what one may describe as utopian
proposals. It is obvious that Beck’s analysis describes in effect the symptoms
rather than the causes of the present crisis. Thus, the present system’s
‘organised irresponsibility’ is described by Beck in terms of ‘the
application of legitimate norms that guarantee the incalculability of the
system’s threats’, the ‘limits of expert knowledge’, ‘technological
optimism’, the ‘irrationality’ of military and political decisions and so
on, rather than in terms of its ‘systemic’ parameters, i.e. the market
economy itself and representative democracy, as well as the ‘dominant social
paradigm’ implied by these parameters. But, it is the combined effect of the
dynamic of the market economy and of the dominant paradigm that, in turn,
determines the direction of techno science which is far from ‘neutral’ --as
it is implicitly assumed by Beck. In the context of such an alternative
explanation, Alario’s optimism in the power of environmental movements, (even
if they are successful in connecting civil, gender and political rights as well
as social justice), seems utopian with respect to the goal of realising an
‘eco-democratic model of society’. Recognition of the ‘systemic’ nature
of the ecological crisis implies the need for the creation of an
‘anti-systemic’ movement which would explicitly aim at replacing the present
institutional framework with a genuine democracy that would aim at eliminating
the fundamental cause of the present multi-dimensional crisis: the concentration
of power at all levels.
Tim Boston offers a powerful description of
American Right Wing ‘Libertarians’ who function as the ideological
apparatuses of the internationalized market economy. He effortlessly shows the
basic flaws of their ideology as well the unethical, in effect, nature of it. As
the author stresses the ethics of right-wing ‘libertarianism’ is nothing
more than the ethics of a social jungle where ‘survival is dependent on
voracity, wealth and power’.
In
the second section, the important discussion about class divisions today, which
began in the last issue, continues with my contribution (Takis Fotopoulos).
The aim of this article is to show that the collapse of the socialist project
and the consequent abandonment of ‘grand narratives’ should not be followed by the rejection of every type of
class analysis and politics, or, even more so, by the abandonment of every
attempt to develop a universal project for human emancipation. Within this
overall aim three particular aims are pursued.
First, to discuss the inadequacies of the Marxist class categories in the
context of the historical development of economic class divisions. Second, to
develop a new model of class divisions for today’s society based on the
unequal distribution of power in all its forms. Third, to define the subject of
emancipatory politics today.
In
the third section,
Steve
Best
contributes an important review article in which he attempts to confront what he
calls one of the major crises today, the crisis of imagination that is
dominating the demoralised Left of today. A Left, which takes so much for
granted, so that many wonder whether the distinction between Left and Right has
a meaning anymore. The author, by confronting a neoliberal,
a social democratic-Green and a Libertarian-Left position on what he
calls ‘scenarios of disaster, visions of liberation’, offers a valuable
contribution to the discussion that has just opened for a ‘Post-capitalist
Green World that rebuilds political and economic institutions for participatory
democracy, as it harmonizes social and natural evolution’.
Finally,
the continuously expanding lively discussion in the dialogue section offers
an exchange between Ted Trainer and myself (Takis Fotopoulos)
on the crucial issue of the transitional strategies for systemic change. Ted
Trainer, after a discussion of the causal elements of the present crisis and the
goals of a movement for a sustainable society, puts a strong case for a strategy
based on the Global Ecovillage movement. In my contribution, I compare and
contrast the ecovillage strategy to that of the Inclusive Democracy’s project
and I argue that the differences in strategies reflect significant paradigmatic
differences. An important aspect of the discussion is an assessment of the
limitations of life-style strategies, as well as those of direct action, the
main example today being the anti-globalisation movement.
Takis
Fotopoulos,
Editor