David_H Said:

I agree with Fran that technology per se is neither good nor bad and that it is its application that determines its worth but I also think there is also an argument that our use of technology can become a form of dependence that can be exploited.

That’s true, but of course the focus ought not to be on the technology itself but rather on the issues of equity attached to it. Let us focus on the social policy questions. It is not merely the fact that industrial society is “dependent” on coal and oil, but that at the other end, is the transfer of harm to masses of the populace, and to coal miners, or to the poor people in the countries that are the focus of conflict.

If we were dependent on stuff that didn’t do any harm and was effectively unlimited, then that would be fine.

[...] some sympathy for the argument expounded by some environmentalists that nuclear power is inherently too dangerous in terms of waste storage to be contemplated, even in a society not based on the profit motive.

I don’t share that view. While prospective environmental risk attaches to every energy system, both the volume of hazmat and its form argue against the sequestration challenges being demanding. It’s inherently safer and easier to manage than any other highly available energy system with the exception of geothermal. This is especially true of IFR, which only uses existing hazmat, and the LFTR for example, which converts Pu239 and U233 from old LWRs.

But even the dirtiest oldest reactor still generates about 1 millionth of the volume of waste of the latest coal fired power plant (per unit of energy output) and of course, it isn’t dispersed into the biosphere but held in a well-defined location. That’s what is inherent in nuclear power — a lack of emissions to the free air. Given that actinides are a part of the coal waste that is emitted in the fly ash, the inhherent superiority of nuclear, even on control of nuclear hazmat is clear.

What is clear is that every kwH of coal fired or gas-fired energy does orders of magnitude more damage to ecosystem services valued by humans, and to humans directly than even the worst-operated contemporary nuclear plant.

Doubtless, if working people get a say in the matter, we will do an immeasurably better job of maximising the utility of these plants to working people than can the profit-hungry capitalists, but our first step would surely be to convert every coal and gas and diesel oil plant to the very best nuclear technology available at the optimal scale, laying the foundations for a dramatic drop in harmful aerosols and toxics in our air, water and terrestrial biota and a recovery of the oceans from increasing acidity.

You’re correct about LP and I hope you con_tribute in future, especially about the DDR & Europe.

Strange to reflect on the Berlin wall given how much influence the Wall and the associated east-west divide had on my early years. What do we have now? It seems that the enemy is now within, its the greens or alarmists, the radical climate change advocates who will destroy the way of life that every right minded consenting adult expects and deserves.

And I don’t see why not being able to develop the productive forces any further is a precondition for revolution either. Surely these forces could be (and have been!) developed in a manner that is totally disastrous for the mass of humanity and the environment..?

No, they haven’t. The productive forces have been developed in ways that are double-edged. The development and deployment of nuclear power, for example, can either usher in clean low carbon and low pollution economies with which socialists would further develop production to meet human needs, or the regulatory environment could allow open slather on a=unsafe practice.

The development of computers has been a very positive thing — so not “totally disastrous” but of course we have techno-junk and inequity. The development of GM crops — again pluses and minuses. Was it good to develop satellites? Well yes, and no. Those satellites can be used as weapons of war. Was the mass rollout of cars a good thing? Yes and no. It made it possible for work to be more flexible and made large tracts of land more valuable at a low initial cost. It also led to sprawling suburbs and mass dependence on fossil fuels and traffic jams and massive road trauma and death.

Developing the productive forces is always a very good thing. It promises to progressively free humanity from alienating work and to enalerge our scope for genuinely free choices about how we run our lives. In the hands of the capitalists though development is temporary, halting and at perpetual risk of turning upon itself and self-destroying taking whole swathes of humans with it.

The challenge for socialists is to arrest decline and stagnation and to empower the working people of the planet to wrest control out of the hands of the capitalists before their system eats itself instead marshalling and continuing to develop the forces of production to meet human need.