Paul Mason. The Red Star and the Green Planet

In "Red Star" (1908) by Alexandr Bogdanov, a communist society on Mars observes the Earth. On realising that the human species has been incapable of overthrowing capitalism, they propose its destruction. More than a century after its publication, Paul Mason poses the question anew: taking into account the current economic context, would the Martians have put an end to humanity? Mason opts for imagining terrestrial salvation, because between the neoliberal market movements, non-mercantile exchanges emerge, the fruit of the new collaborative economy. In the light of these first signs of change, Paul Mason outlines a simple participative game to illustrate the alternatives that confront us.
This lecture took place at Kosmopolis 2019 (CCCB, 23 March 2019).
more info: kosmopolis.cccb.org/en/edicion...

[@vinapocalypse]

It's a good book (you can find an English translation with a little effort). As a Trot, he is critical Of Lenin and more specifically Stalin, but the USSR and Stalin had to deal with some very concrete and dire circumstances both before WW2 (the US and a number of other of countries trying to invade the USSR) and during WW2 (Nazi German). Additionally, the idea that Communism could arise without any sort of worker struggle - just wishing that capitalists et al would voluntarily give up their power - is a fantasy. Modern Communist and other leftist worker struggles around the world are constantly attacked by US/Western/capitalist power.

[@CaneofLoxley]

I haven't read a massive amount about tectonics but I don't see how it is not just another name for dialectics. It seems very much focused on viewing things as a dynamic totality which is the essence of a dialectical view. Can anyone explain what I'm missing?

[@theelectricant98]

Awesome speech, I just read Red Star and I think Mason offers a great analysis of the bigger questions that the book wrestles with

[@SrServ]

Investigate Technocracy technate design. Howard Scott and energy accounting

[@mistercohaagen]

The word "degrowth" needs a rebrand, lol! I'm surprised more right-wing people don't correlate sustainability with self-sufficiency and autonomy ("freedom"). Nothing seems more conservative to me than owning your own means of inexhaustible power generation, water filtration and recycling, food production, 3d printing, etc. Why submit to employment, grocery stores and importing parts and pieces to maintain your household when the whole project could be under your own control and responsibility? Nothing improves the conditions of capitalism than making it entirely voluntary (a position of security and power), and gamifying it, open-sourcing everything so it's down to an individuals skill in implementation (meritocracy). What about rebranding GDP as something like "Global Death Periodicity"; essentially that's what it is. More illness and pollution (more station-keeping labor wasted on servicing illness instead of curing, more cleaning up someone else's mess) = higher GDP. Growth should be actually progressive in terms of what is possible; achievement unlocked. Numbers in a bank account will mean less and less quality of life to pass on to your children unless we start to embrace Systems Theory, especially in terms of global resource management. Ever-shrinking islands of prosperity, where the cost of admission grows exponentially. No matter how hard to fight for those 0's... the day will come when you're kicked off the island for not having enough. We all will. Human existence distilled into a game of Monopoly; 1 winner... billions of losers. Then the game ends after some gloating. No thanks.

[@homelessrobot]

i think they don't because often the 'sustainable' branded things people propose are either 1) not socially conservative, and/or 2) only hypothetically economically conservative.The general concept is practiced and compatible with stoic/libertarian conservatism. Lots of people who practice a 'sustainable' (homesteading) lifestyle are politically conservative.
Conservatism and 'right wing' are only temporarily and artificially connected. Right wing is authoritarianism, which isn't really compatible at all with most modern political conservatism, given that the societies we already live in are comparatively non-authoritarian.

[@mistercohaagen]

@@homelessrobot Nuances are hard to come by lately. Hopefully we'll get a breather next year, and figure out up from down again to make the next move.

[@robertphillifent5401]

A journalist who talks a lot of crap!!