[Green Left Weekly, #189, May 31, 1995; based on a paper presented to the Marxist educational conference Campaigning for Democratic Socialism, held in Melbourne at Easter 1995.]
The view of a modern city from the window of a plane as it descends is often breathtakingly impressive. The panorama is truly a miracle of social and technical organisation. Taking in the endless pattern of roads, houses, buildings and the night-time latticework of street lights can be a moving experience. The spectacle seems to say: this amazingly complex artificial environment we have created, all this is what human beings are capable of.