The Shining Path to a Nuclear Workers' Paradise

Stuart Jordan over at Workers' Liberty proposes an interesting reason to oppose nuclear energy if oppose it we must:

Whether or not we believe there is a role for nuclear in a future society, we should be absolutely clear that the bourgeoisie views nuclear technology in a way fundamentally opposed to the how Marxists should see it. Their concern is for profit, ours is for human need, and the nuclear power stations that they are proposing to build will reflect this difference.

I think he means the plant will reflect the drive for profit, not the difference between that and human need. Marxists know how to create loaded terminology, but it turns their prose into spaghetti-like strands of thought that sound densely intelligent but are often just plain dense.

But any particular technology developed under capitalism will invariably bear the mark of this ecological[ly?] destructive and alienating system. In some cases the technology can be modified in ways that will restore the metabolic relationship. But in the case of nuclear this seems unlikely.

I wonder how he would "modify" the technology to give it a pass or, shall we say, restore the metabolic relationship. Enquiring minds want to know.

But let's at least give Stuart points for thinking big.

A socialist reconstruction of society will involve knocking down a lot of walls and welding together a lot of cars to make more communal, ecologically sound use of our technology.

For us bourgeois types, that would be busses and those lovely communal apartments that made Soviet romantic comedies so sparkling.

There are a fair number of articles on nuclear energy over at Workers Liberty, but you may be sure that if these scraps cause your brain to liquefy, then the site should definitely be given a steer clear. We'll just call it a little fun on a Friday afternoon.