Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] [OT] My Vision of the Future (now!)

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Michael Elvin <marimike6@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] [OT] My Vision of the Future (now!)
  • Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 14:43:03 +0000 (UTC)

Toby,
>> That scenario makes real solutions easier to see. More acceptance of the
>> need for birth control, and greater redistribution of concentrated wealth.
>> Those would be my own starting priorities. 
> 
> Correct me if I am wrong, but in my eyes these are not "real solutions",
> but just pipe dreams once again. Or else - how actually DO you start on
> these?
> 

Good critique. But once you have the goal defined, solutions present
themselves. 
For example, it would seem to me to be a worthwhile way to spend a day, to
come to a local school board meeting and ask whether they discuss the strong
statistical link between single motherhood and lifelong poverty in their
sex-ed classes. And if they don't, to ask them why they don't.
On wealth equalization, a good cause to advance would be the financial
transactions tax. One could ask her or his local senator or congress member
whether they would consider supporting a bill-- and if not, why not.
Lots of answers come readily from well-formed questions. If I can't find a
good answer I tinker with the question.

On Thursday, August 4, 2016 10:14 PM, Toby Hemenway
<toby@patternliteracy.com> wrote:



> On Aug 4, 2016, at 8:36 AM, Georg Parlow <g.parlow@gmx.at> wrote:
>
>> That scenario makes real solutions easier to see. More acceptance of the
>> need for birth control, and greater redistribution of concentrated wealth.
>> Those would be my own starting priorities.
>
> Correct me if I am wrong, but in my eyes these are not "real solutions",
> but just pipe dreams once again. Or else - how actually DO you start on
> these?
>

I think of acceptance of the need for birth control and redistribution of
wealth as goals, not solutions. A solution tells you how to do something, not
where you want to get.

For reducing population, Indonesia provides a telling example (as do a number
of other countries). I was there in the 1980s for an extended visit.
Everywhere I went, people proudly told me how they were having small
families, even though they came from a large family. The government had sent
teams into every town and village in the 1970s, focusing primarily on the
women, telling them the advantages of small family (less time spent pregnant,
more money from having fewer mouths to feed, etc,) and set up birth control
dispensaries everywhere.

The birth rate dropped from 5.6 children per woman in 1960 to 2.6 in 2000,
and it’s still at 2.6. Remember, too, that this is a Muslim country, so they
aren’t that backward (not like the Catholics!)

The real solution is education of women. The other solution is simple
affluence, in which raising a child becomes incredibly expensive, rather than
in agrarian societies where children are viewed as workers. That’s what did
it in Europe (1.4 children per woman, well below replacement) and the US. But
the affluence route isn’t as open as it used to be.

Redistribution of wealth, if we can’t totally dismantle corporate capitalism
(now, there’s a goal!), has often been addressed by confiscatory tax rates.
In 1944-45, US income above $200,000 ($2.4 million in 2009 dollars) was taxed
at 94%. $14,000 per year ($168,000 today) was taxed at 50%, and it went up
fast from there. The next 25 years saw the US middle class have a higher
standard of living than any time before or after. There are other solutions
(e.g., campaign finance reform) but taxation is a straightforward one.

Toby
tobyhemenway.com

Learn about my Permaculture Design Course in the SF Bay Area, next October
through March. http://dailyacts.org/pdc/

Get copies of my books, Gaia’s Garden and The Permaculture City, signed and
inscribed to you or a friend at http://tobyhemenway.com/books/

permaculture mailing list
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
subscribe/unsubscribe|user config|list info:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture



>From lfljvenaura@gmail.com Fri Aug 5 11:07:32 2016
Return-Path: <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
X-Original-To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Received: by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix, from userid 20217)
id 2A0B41FBE; Fri, 5 Aug 2016 11:07:32 -0400 (EDT)
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on
mailman1.ibiblio.org
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.2 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,
DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_SIGNED, HK_RANDOM_FROM, HTML_MESSAGE,
LOTS_OF_MONEY,
NML_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW,T_DKIM_INVALID,T_MONEY_PERCENT
autolearn=no version=3.3.1
Received: from mail-lf0-f51.google.com (mail-lf0-f51.google.com
[209.85.215.51])
by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B0756B88
for <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>;
Fri, 5 Aug 2016 11:07:20 -0400 (EDT)
Received: by mail-lf0-f51.google.com with SMTP id b199so206139235lfe.0
for <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>;
Fri, 05 Aug 2016 08:07:20 -0700 (PDT)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s 120113;
h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id:subject:to;
bh=6uTksyeTzMi5CK2UGdUS+EgF7yrlShtjAi3C2SyZ7sg=;
b=RzdZJgraRzeUv5sY3BzPJS/pwBDbpFkk+gjFy0JwTRNZbiYWa5p567Atssfl6ewV/u
tgLf/ShxV+MU4DDrCi3kKBr+RKEDVRLMh3X5wh2drSo3SrsHhggzFbrOpBtdFvZugA2w
Bbsd85cHT3bxJu7fxClNZ0+st1BKrlQxwhfvOXCIcw5Q92WyHuedMzQ04k8qpKkG5pC2
LaWMJaLIdMQ1CJbDddr1uC2hxNISEtEuTEWj0wvBGxXNjcQNY0COkNZ6a17Gyd3cLuX+
QSu6fpboyI0bur0uJPYns7vED5Yd2Ypm/kNbb7H+Ho7xGtQP8+s0wO0OH4d+caiwVtcv
hVHQ=X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
d100.net; s 130820;
h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from:date
:message-id:subject:to;
bh=6uTksyeTzMi5CK2UGdUS+EgF7yrlShtjAi3C2SyZ7sg=;
b=RYqUvftCSUVKrff1w/s0630F04IFWtc7UWBlXi5f8ZCgvnzFMWWdqMftWjo6Bvhy+F
OtfD4ISiE1d3Vc6xnYNp39sRasieVgzU0lvsHNYoKST4E5fZpEpPQRP8jrsWRmpCvt8m
osmPbeWdkX0mR4kAIH8EWimzNA5BUo85nLEQ+fmiFYcy7jw197NulFZy8LlgOwbtyjDj
FFdfTrYJdR0csGIwxDLoWdxnu4m63uPiC7YTJ1LPWZZLy57mcHdmVq7fU98Kv2DpnzE7
tANttlH/c0bdUaTdX9EOHiewECSCidmuETsxiBwLW2/SlfIdSaINxVdq5h0TYe3EQRLj
MnRg=X-Gm-Message-State:
AEkooutl7bstpAVLfNe/qc57fuZLYKNoChuM6ryGYjmgF40WZwo3cu2MdvMQiBEQTCh3DIxpHPeZyXNJujIqnw=X-Received:
by 10.25.212.212 with SMTP id l203mr14905256lfg.2.1470409639057;
Fri, 05 Aug 2016 08:07:19 -0700 (PDT)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.25.153.202 with HTTP; Fri, 5 Aug 2016 08:06:58 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <0B8AE1B4-EFF8-4713-8C2A-C8B120D943E6@patternliteracy.com>
References:
<CAOvvz9EEfDKPxA3vjsVLu00c8OpPwkD6pP3X1R2vNwDyOSDQ5Q@mail.gmail.com>
<852437194.10824000.1470229971913.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
<57A262C7.8020106@eircom.net>
<1360291869.11861207.1470320602165.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
<F3EA2028-EC8B-4AB6-90C8-EFD73C6189A4@gmx.at>
<0B8AE1B4-EFF8-4713-8C2A-C8B120D943E6@patternliteracy.com>
From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 11:06:58 -0400
Message-ID:
<CA+j2Q+AyQ43OyPi6NF17CAxkDaUOwn7CUjOhe-Ouvc9-cEe5Dg@mail.gmail.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.20
Subject: Re: [permaculture] [OT] My Vision of the Future (now!)
X-BeenThere: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20
Precedence: list
List-Id: permaculture <permaculture.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/permaculture>,
<mailto:permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture/>
List-Post: <mailto:permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa@lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture>,
<mailto:permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2016 15:07:32 -0000

On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 10:13 PM, Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
wrote:

> US income above $200,000 ($2.4 million in 2009 dollars) was taxed at 94%.
> $14,000 per year ($168,000 today) was taxed at 50%, and it went up fast
> from there. The next 25 years saw the US middle class have a higher
> standard of living than any time before or after. There are other solutions
> (e.g., campaign finance reform) but taxation is a straightforward one.
>

Issac Azimov once published an article in an early Playboy magazing in
which he described a future scenario where the American economic landscape
became stratified on two levels, the very rich and the very poor who were
always and automatically subsidized by a government welfare system.
Sometimes I wonder if that will actually come to pass but I doubt it. The
middel class seems to be doing very well now but if inflation increases a
lot,
the income grades of some could drop into lower middle or upper poor
brackets. Overpopulation, pollution and associated health risks, high cost
of housing, transportation, healthcare and healthy food could exacerbate
that situation.


--
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/116100117925365792988/+Avantgeared/posts
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/orangegrapevine
https://ello.co/lflondon <https://ello.co/permaculture>
https://ello.co/permaculture
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page