• Nagarjuna [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    If you're trying to feed the people, why are you growing les pommes des arbors and not les pommes de terre?

    This comment is really representative of a conservative trend in the communist movement. Marx was talking about ending the division of labor and making labor life's prime want. The russian revolutionaries used to talk about a country controlled by soviets.

    But now a lot of folks seem to accept the cold war anti communist dichotomy between a capitalism of beautiful scarcity and a communism of dull sufficiency. This forgets the Venezuelan project to communize the economy. It forgets that the Soviet school system embraced dewian pedagogy and created a public school system unrivaled in its humanism. This trend don't seek an apple tree in every square, but plantations of efficent, bland apples.

    • handystack [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Uhh major apple regions tend to be in places where the soil is too poor to grow potatoes. It's a thing you can do in places with harsh winters, rocky soil, and steep grades.

      • Nagarjuna [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Do you have any thoughts about the substance of my comment?

        • handystack [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Sure. I'll discuss this with you further if you'd like, but I don't want to lose sight of the apples here.

          Both apples and potatoes are excellent durable crops, but are best suited to different growing regions.

          Within good apple growing regions, choice of variety should take many factors into account -things like resilience to present climate conditions, staggering harvest timing, maintaining genetic diversity, providing fruit for different uses (eating, cooking, juicing, fermenting, etc.), and good storage/shipping durability. Whether these factors are prioritized by individual growers in a market or by some central planning authority, I argue that durability should not be undervalued. Red delicious apples really are amazing in their rot resistance, and should be celebrated as such.

          I am optimistic that in our lifetimes we will see new better tasting apple varieties eclipse the red delicious as a durable, long-storing staple fruit. We should not have to choose between variety and abundance, but we should also be realistic about our agricultural capabilities. In my estimation, capitalism is a huge hinderance to the development and widespread adoption of new apple varieties. The university breeding projects are often underfunded, and when they do produce promising scions/rootstocks, the legal right to grow and market them is restricted by unnecessary and counterproductive intellectual property claims. I dream of a communist future with greater apple abundance and variety for all people in every season of the year. Will you join me, comrade?

          • Nagarjuna [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            This is the kind of thinking I think we should often scaffold our thoughts with. I like this new framing, bringing forward the virtues of red delicious without downplaying the honeycrisp, and hoping for a beautiful symthesis