Property More Valuable Than Lives
Posted by Richard S. on February 16, 2007
Somewhat related to some stuff that I said in the prior post, I’ve really appreciated this quote that I got from Loveecstacycrime, originally from a guy named Derrick Jensen, whom I don’t know much about:
The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control–in everyday language, to make money–by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.
Don’t have anything to add except, how very true…
February 16, 2007 at 5:52 am
I misread the title. And that made me think of something else.
In programming/web development an emerging school of thought is that programmer’s time/people’s development cycles are more important than CPU cycles.
http://www.loudthinking.com has more on this.
February 19, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Not being a programmer or salesman of programs, I had a little trouble at first understanding your comment… First I thought you were saying that the more important measure is the amount of labor time put into making the product. (Probably a conclusion that would be reached only by someone who’s read less about programming than he has about Marx.) Now I realize that you probably mean that the more important factor is at the point of consumption: the amount of labor time people have to expend to learn - or just use - the product. Which would make sense (if I’m right)…
Regarding the Web site, it seems as though it spends an awful lot of time selling the author’s books. At first I held this comment, wondering if you were referring us to some kind of spam (no offense), but now I think that the Web site is just, sometimes, spammish.
February 20, 2007 at 4:52 pm
wow. the commie curmudgeon posting something a primitivist wrote…will wonders never cease!
February 20, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Um, actually, there isn’t anything so wonderful about that. Many times, I don’t even see the big (supposed) opposition between “red” and “green.” There’s a lot of eco-Marxism and also cross-influencing between insurrectionist anarchism and council communism (just for example) that kind of deflates this whole big notion that “red” anarchism and “primitivism” are completely opposite and always-opposing camps. And I’ve always personaly appreciated a radical critique of technology.
There are two authors I consider big influences on my thinking who’ve been called primitivist: Ivan Illich and Lewis Mumford. And in a blog several years ago, I extensively quoted from John Zerzan (specifically, his anti-psychiatry). (I also appreciate some things Zerzan has said about the division of labor, though of course those ideas are strongly influenced by Marx.) I also enjoy reading Green Anarchy and I liked The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul (even though I don’t completely agree with either of these much of the time).
So there!