Dear Banjo and davidf,
Neither of you seems to have a problem with the "startling equation" I mention above.
I agree that the democratic socialist states are the healthiest and happiest we have, in fact I have praised them myself on OLO, responding commensurately with the more reactionary opinions I was encountering.
But that doesn't alter the fact that these "fools' utopias" are unsustainable. Like any capitalist system they are based on endless growth in a closed system, and that system is the planet. Which means that the happy Danes and co enjoy their lifestyles at the expense of those (people, resources, biosphere) they remotely exploit. How, exactly, is it "quite possible to live sustainably under capitalism of the Scandinavian type"? The only real difference between us and them is welfare, and less economic segregation. While admirable, again this is unsustainable in a finite world of competitive free markets and diminishing profits! So can you both please address your Panglossian views and tell me, what is the good of a free society (still based on exploitation) that cannot be sustained? Do we live for the moment?
One of the reasons the US attained superpower status was by minimising welfare, wage-labour and working conditions (including leave); this helped finance massive state infrastructure that is now unwieldy and unsustainable. The US is headed for a fatal fall but will, I believe, lash out at its rivals first (as some of the generals wanted to at the climax of WW2). The socialist democracies put their money into social welfare, engendering more genuine and humane entrepreneurial innovation, but even this can't last in a dog-eat-dog world.
Once again, I am not defending or recommending communism. I'm criticising the fatal disease, capitalism.
North Korea is one of the most despicable regimes imaginable and offends me deeply, but it is in fact the obverse image (in miniature) of the US. Where the US has developed its grotesque proportions by ideology (internal and global), NK's might is that of a hideous dwarf; self-contained, despised and oppressive.
Like Richard the Third, Kim ill-Sung only wants for deplomacy.

Dear Squeers,

We agree that endless growth under a closed system is unsustainable.

That is true regardless of who controls the modes of production.

Socialism is no more concerned with sustainability than capitalism. They merely are different kinds of unsustainable economic systems.

It is a problem which has become more pressing as the population and the exploitation of the world's resources expand.

To the best of my knowledge Marx never dealt with that problem since it had not surfaced to most consciousness at that time.

Some people were aware of the extinction of species and other results of unsustainability, but most were not.

In "Moby Dick" Melville speculated on the possible extinction of the whale.

Industrialised societies produced by the industrial revolution exacerbated the problem.

On a finite planet no species can grow without limit.

If a species does not control its numbers eventually there will be a catastrophe which will control its numbers.

We agree there is a problem. I see it as a consequence of our uncontrolled growth and exploitation of the earth.

In order to solve it if it can be solved by attacking it rationally we must control it by those who make political and economic decisions being aware of the sustainable consequences of those decisions.

So far the lack of awareness of such consequences seems greater to me in the societies supposedly based on Marxist theory.

What relevance does Marx have to the problem?

Dear DavidF,
Any social system that operates under capitalism must by definition be unsustainable, including so-called communist/socialist states, which are oxymoronic in any case within global capitalism. Notwithstanding corruption, any state that has tried to adopt such a model, since Marx, has had to do so within a hostile and competitive global environment. No country can insulate itself against capitalism, which, as I say, transcends all borders. China tried to(again) under Mau Zedong and so did the USSR. Both failed, as have all the others, but they were harassed on all sides and unable to match the productivity of their ideological enemy. Even Marx is often in awe of the productivity, and concomitant power, of capitalist dynamics. The failed socialist states do double duty by exemplifying the superiority of capitalism, morally and economically, with their failure. Yet they were never an alternative ideology, but a contradictory one, a threat, and they were dealt with accordingly. So far as Marx was concerned, the idea was never production for its own sake, to amass wealth; rather, production/labour was, beyond mere utility, humanity's creative/species expression (uniquely, we are creative beings, we transcend nature with art and craft), its earthly habitat. That is the means of production capitalism harnessed and commodified! Under the prevailing conditions, capitalist supremacy, rogue states had to compete, and not against friendly rivals. Western ideology conveniently has it that the failure was due to "immoral", "evil" "atheist" (one wonders at the need for hyperbole) systems, or else it was irredeemable human nature. Such human nature is after all on show and merely mundane under capitalist dispensations. Whether this is true, that nature has created innately creative/aesthetic/productive beings, who are also vicious and obsessively self seeking, or that these distortions are the product of a vicious system, is a moot point. Was the failure of socialist states due to human corruption, or was corruption due to the worldly pressures brought to bare?
Incidentally, can you see how Christianity serves the system, as moral counterweight?
Marx did foresee environmental degradation, and remains the most compelling critic, by far, of our decadent system.

Dear Squeers,

I am an atheist. I believe in neither God nor Satan. I do not believe that we can put all the ills of the world on Satan or capitalism nor do I believe Marx or anybody else for that matter is wise enough to tell us how to remedy the ills of the world. Like other species and all life on earth we will eventually become extinct, and that will be an end to it.

Meanwhile I will do what I can to meet the problems of the day and enjoy what life I have.

I feel you are a decent sort and a deeply religious person. I am a flawed human being and a skeptic.

I wish you well.

Well thank you for the thoughtful response, DavidF. You must have agonised for hours and I'm deeply grateful. Sorry to say I am not the "deeply religious person" you take me for, and you are not the thoughtful person I took you for. Such is life.

Dear Banjo,
thanks for the link, I shall think it over and get back to you.

Dear Squeers,

I am sorry for my sarcasm.

I don't think the Marxist systems failed due to the pressure of capitalism. I think they failed because they were rotten from the beginning.

I don't think we agree enough to continue on this subject.