MRzine hopes the Gulf oil spill can be a way for the socialist left to get some points across. And in the process shows how the left continues to isolate itself.
Amidst mass capital-imposed structural unemployment and ever-escalating environmental collapse, the ongoing epic British Petroleum-Deepwater Horizon spill — more than 40 million gallons and counting (far beyond the previous record set by the Exxon Valdez) in the Gulf of Mexico — ought to be something of a teachable moment for radical opponents of the profits system.
Ok, sounds good. But then the article into a long and ponderous explanation of how Marxist theory is applicable here, and in the process uses jargon only a Marxist would understand or care about and why, why I ask you, do Marxists generally write in such impenetrable, boring prose?
As the ongoing eco-cidal BP-Deepwater calamity suggests and as a growing mountain of scientific evidence shows, the overdue correction — the restored communal regulation of production — is more than merely desirable and recommended. It is an existential requirement for the human species, for which it has long been (as the prolific Hungarian Marxist Istvan Meszaros puts it) “socialism or barbarism if we’re lucky.” The barbarism has already begun and the fight is now both against that and for mere survival. The corporate state is leading us on a death march at an ever-escalating pace. Deepwater and Bhopal are us. It will not do to tinker around the edges in response. Only revolution can save the Earth
Zzzzz. Boy, that’ll really mobilize the masses, turgid prose ending with the obligatory call to revolution with no plan or explanation as how to get there.
The article has some fine ideas in them, but the style and presentation will drive away all but the already converted, something which seems endemic in Marxist theorizing.