Industry involves transforming raw materials into finished goods
through the application of human labor (often enhanced by machines).
Industry is really about dead matter. If the raw material is alive, it
often has to be killed before it becomes suitable for the industrial
process. Typical operations include: cutting, sawing, melting,
punching, etc.
Agriculture is about living matter, which goes through its own process
of living growth independent of human intervention. The farmer's role,
unlike that of the worker, is simply to enhance, take care, support,
etc. a living process. Industrial agriculture applies to living
processes methods which are suitable for dead matter and therefore
runs into all kinds of problems. This industrialist approach to
agriculture is a common feature of both capitalism and socialism.
Genetic engineering is a further development of this industrialist
approach to agriculture.
As for Cuba and the U.S.A.: it is true that more Cubans want to go to
the US than vice versa. But the comparison is somewhat unfair because
Cuba has been a target of a cruel economic embargo for decades and can
only rely on its own limited resources. The embargo, coupled with the
mistakes of the Cuban socialist regime (like relying on the former
USSR and on sugar exports instead of building a self-sufficient
economy), puts the Cuban people through a lot of hardships which many
understandably want to escape from. The U.S., on the other hand,
benefits from American control over huge resources outside their own
borders. Through their unsustainable use of these resources, many
Americans artificially, though temporarily, enjoy a better life than
others. If Americans had to rely purely on their own resources as much
as the Cubans do, the American smugness about their superior standard
of living might dissipate quickly.
In fact, the decades of U.S. blockade against Cuba has forced the
Castro regime to adopt "Greenish" policies in some areas. It would be
interesting how things would turn out if a socialist country like Cuba
abandons socialism but transforms itself into a Green society rather
than back to capitalism.
Finally, on democracy and the "free" market: at the core of today's
global capitalism are the corporations, many of which are economically
larger than most of the world's nations. Internally, a corporation is
as top-down and dictatorial as you can imagine. Internally too, the
corporation is a centrally-planned economy, not a free market. There
are more similarities between a corporation and a one-party State than
initially meets the eye.
Regards to all,
Roberto Verzola
Philippine Greens
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