"…the eco-fascist myth of overpopulation… "
Alas, Paris Marx falls at the first fence. Veteran socialists of my generation are prone to this particular glitch. They - we! - say that all the world’s peoples must get all the basics of a modestly decent life as a priority (agreed!), and that anything which looks as if it might work against that ideal - like admitting that there are just too many of us around at the moment to make that easily workable, maybe not workable at all, in fact, without fewer of us around - has to be denounced as ‘fascist’ anti-justice.
The dire reality is that we are indeed in the middle of a population-overshoot for humans at the moment, and denialism-with-adhoms is an ostrich-response.
Fortunately - if that’s the right word - the current human overshoot will get cured, probably mostly during this century, whether humans decide to assist actively, or just carry on ignoring the crisis, as we have so far. Acknowledging these over-riding geophysical and bio-ecological realities is simple common sense, not necessarily any commitment at all to fascistic eugenics theses.
Personally, I have nothing but hostile contempt for such philosophies. But I also have no doubt to speak of that we are indeed in an overshoot episode right now. And no indeed, tech isn’t going to save us from it. Not whilst we continue to remain wilfully blind to the crisis. In the history of life on Earth, there seems never to have been an overshoot incident that hasn’t ended by the Gaian neg-feedback systems slapping it down again pretty quickly, back into balanced conformance with the Earth’s multiple homeostasis-maintenance mechanisms. Often an unkind process for the crucial generation. But we’ve simply refused like prize wankers to look at the humane methods which we could have used, had we volunteered to face this problem adequately, so we’ve asked for the harshness, and we’re getting it already: the Synergising Global Crises, already operating.
For scarcity-socialism - the only practicable humane alternative to the vicious neo-feudalism which we’re watching advance right now - to succeed, we do indeed have to destroy the criminally-overrich global oligarch class; and keep them destroyed; not by mass murder, but by comprehensive expropriation of ALL their excessive wealth, and by constant draconian restraint of their psycho-sociopathic addiction permanently hereafter. Personally, I favour maximum wealth limits for all individuals, families, groups and organisations to be written into basic state constitutions, with heavy somewhat punitive enforcement arrangements in place and acting vigilantly. Remember, WealthPowerStatus is an indivisible trinity. If you have the wealth, then you get to lord it with inordinate power over others. Insist that no-one, an any excuse, gets to be richer than a certain very modest limit, and you take away simultaneously their unjustifiable power, and their - apparently compulsive - snotty condescension to the plebs.
Then we might be able to bring social justice to all the billions who now have to struggle through the crash-and-restabilise phase of our current population crisis. Assuredly, tech isn’t going to give us an effulgent, fully-re-greened planet AND nine-ten-eleven billion humans all living like Vulcans, at the same time. A quart won’t go into a pint pot, no matter how hard the techno-narcissists strive to square that circle.
And no, there will be no Moon or Mars colonies to ‘relieve the pressure’ (hah! as if!). Windy musk-shite, that is.
