The Population Myth, part 1//Murray Bookchin
I’m sick of hearing about overpopulation devoid of any class or decent economic analysis. I’m particularly sick of the overpopulation myths being trotted out with accompanied pictures of masses of poor people in India, Bangladesh, Sao Paulo etc.
These people consume next to nothing. Stop implying that they are the problem. They are the victims of this crisis, not the cause of it. They are not a drain on resources. They are the ones being drained, drained of their humanity, drained of the substance of their lives to service a system that already produces enough food for everyone on the planet. There is a massive problem here, but its solution is the overthrow of the system that created it, not ‘less people’.
To all the fear addicted reactionaries who tut tut at another baby that is born into a slum, turn their noses up in disgust at the birth of another ‘useless eater’ here to upset your middle class ‘garden of eden’ bullshit idyll … You should fear this child. You should be afraid when you look at pictures of the sheer mass of urban poor, seething and growing and building all over the world. Because when they organise and claim what’s theirs, you and your hand wringing eco-fascist pals will do fuck all to stop them.
there’s a Godwin in this (and I’m tired of that sort of thing), but reblogging anyway
i don’t know that “eco-fascist” counts as Godwin. it’s not an analogy to Nazi Germany or the Holocaust, but a reference to the ample crypto-genocidal/bunker-survivalist tendencies of certain ideologies within the left that focus on overpopulation/collapse/etc.
I like Murray Bookchin and I like this article. I don’t see how you can say that the connection between Malthusianism and fascism is in any way tenuous or unjustified. It’s extremely well-established.
Godwin’s law (that whoever makes the first Nazi comparison loses the argument) is fucking ridiculous and ahistorical. I mean, I get that comparisons to Nazism and the holocaust are often used in really inaccurate, appropriative, sneaky ways. but I’ve been accused of breaking Godwin’s law for bringing up actual links to currently active neo-Nazi groups. Nazism had a historical context, its impact is ongoing, and there are many people today who hold explicitly Nazi beliefs. There is nothing to be gained by exempting it from any kind of analysis or comparison to other events. It doesn’t help us to crystallise it as an example of the most incommensurable evil, qualitatively beyond any other genocide or atrocity. it’s not, ok? that’s the kind of thinking that stops us from understanding it and preventing future atrocities. it’s also the kind of thinking that allows the unscrupulous to use it as an unanswerable slur. we need more critical analysis of the ongoing impact of Nazism and the Holocaust, not less.
