ENLIGHTENING STUFF

This popped up on a Google search for "Walt Sheasby":

Some may ask, "If capitalism switches to renewable energy and material inputs, will it be sustainable?" Not only do I believe that it is structurally impossible for capitalism to limit its inputs to renewable levels, I believe this is the wrong question to ask. By moving the discussion to technology and the means of production, we lose sight of relationally-oriented, Marxian analysis. Although capitalism must expand both extensively and intensively, our earthly biosphere is finite. There must be centers of accumulation and regions of extraction. The flow of energy and materials tends to occur geographically from the peripheries to the core, while the waste tends to be concentrated in the peripheral regions. This flow tends to create a division between town and country, but the expansion of capitalism, necessary to its logic, poses limits to the development of these polar relationships. The peripheries develop complexity at the same time that values are depleted, but peripheral regions must develop complexity in a certain fashion to serve the needs of the core. So called "development" is not possible for all regions of the world because of the nature of global world-system and the very logic of capitalism.

The question to be asked, really, is whether we proceed with capitalism until we reach an ecological bifurcation point that leaves the habitability of the earth in question for the vast majority of the population, or we reach a social bifurcation point that leads us to a social system of production that is dissipative, nonetheless, but does not threaten the flowing balance of nature.

and I also discovered Derek Wall's blog... do give Derek a shot...

OPPONENTS OF THE WASHINGTON CONSENSUS ARE AT THREE NOW

Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia...