[permaculture] conservatism

tom tom at honeychrome.com
Fri Feb 15 09:09:15 EST 2008


I just happened to read "A Prosperous Way Down" by Howard Odum.   
Though his writings on systems and ecology apparently influenced  
Holmgren, and this particular book screamed 'permaculture' on nearly  
every page, the word didn't actually appear once.  Its not written in  
the most cohesive and elegant manner, but had some really great  
points and perspectives to impart, not least the beginnings of a  
strong framework for making compelling, systems and full accounting- 
based arguments against the notion that free-market capitalism is the  
right mechanism to confront our planet and culture's transformation.   
He doesn't attack capitalism in and of its self, but argues that it  
was/is a system that very efficiently served a purpose for a  
particular kind of world, but that world is changing and our economic  
system must change with it.  Pro free-trade/free-market unbounded  
capitalists present themselves as pragmatic and figure-based and it  
seems often those who see a bigger picture are left responding with  
'softer' points about ethics, or morality.  Odum's thesis begins to  
get at a means of successfully arguing against free-trade/market  
unbounded capitalism in the terms those supporting the system so  
often use, and a means of quantifying and forcing the inclusion of  
those things that are so often 'externalized' from the argument (not  
unlike the way corporate entities externalize all manner of things  
they don't like or want to deal with!).


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