Nik, the planet might expire while the ultraleft ponders the purest praxis, but to put your trust in markets as decision-making mechanisms — and to then somehow see industry as being able to exponentially self-reproduce via direct (re)investment (i.e. the idea that “capital creates capital”) — isn’t “realism”, it’s a re-reification of the economy. I obviously can’t deny that certain industrial fluxes involving markets could yield practices that are less environmentally harmful, because this undoubtedly happens, but equally, they might not lead to significant change — how much is the current prestige niche market for “organic food” going to (a) give us non-poisonous produce that benefits people at large, rather than neurotic yuppies, and (b) actually allow the most immediate ravages of agribusiness on the wider environment to be averted? I’d think that prestige niche markets are more likely to stimulate “product-line diversification” than turn the tide in an industry, thus leaving the status quo fairly much intact.