: Nope, corporate industry created computers, and corporate industry also created the waste products of the creation of silicon chips. (If you need a reminder of the difference between corporate industry and capitalism per se, read Adam Smith's THE WEALTH OF NATIONS -- Smith was against corporations.) About ten years ago, when I was living in Santa Cruz, CA, we heard about corporations such as IBM and Fairchild, who would take the used-up solvents they used to make silicon chips, and put them in regular old barrels, and bury the barrels underground, where the solvents would leak into the water table and poison the water supplies of the residents of South San Jose.: All this for people who pay some of the highest rents in America. (There was a TV news piece I saw recently about people who couldn't make the rent in San Jose, despite their numerous labors...sorry I can't say when or what the piece was)
: Back to my discussion. Did capitalism provide an incentive for IBM and Fairchild to clean up their corporate messes? Nope, a grassroots organization called Californians for a Better Environment solicited contributions from the affected public so it could hire lawyers to sue the EPA so the EPA would force IBM and Fairchild to clean up their messes.
: As for what would happen "if we were in a socialism," it's interesting to see that Bednarz is speculating in this way. Socialism has never existed on this Earth in all of human history. Perhaps Bednarz might enlighten us as to what it might look like "if we were in a socialism," using the definition of socialism specified in Marx's "critique of the Gotha programme":
: "In a more advanced phase of communist society, when the enslaving subjugation of individuals to the division of labour, and thereby the antithesis between intellectual and physical labour, have disappeared; when labour is no longer just a means of keeping alive but has itself become a vital need; when the all-round development of individuals has also increased their productive powers and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then can society wholly cross the narrow horizon of bourgeois right and inscribe on its banner: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!"
Why don't you enlighten us as to what your vision of socialist society would look like. And remember that you would be speculating as well.
I have two questions for you concerning the above quote from Marx. Number one, how does the all-around development of people take place? Did he think that mankind would evolve to this state on their own, or would the state play a part in this development?
Number two, concerning the distribution of wealth and goods according to one's own needs. Obviously the state would have to enforce this. Would the state decide what's best for its citizens in other areas as well? Would this be a democratic process?
I look forward to reading your answers because its obvious you've given a great deal of thought to this subject.
