Homestead mailing list

["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT dtnspeed.net>]

Among other things, I wrote:


>PS: So, James, how would you address globalism? I believe that we should
>keep certain production domestic, and while my very DNA is opposed to
>tariffs, an intelligent use of such may be necessary to maintain a decent
>life.

And James replied:

<<Your DNA has good instincts.  To answer the question, though, I would not 
address globalism with the pretense of being able to fix (correct or 
overcome) its ill effects.  Here's why I say that:  No economic system, 
major system, has been in place during the lifetime of even the oldest 
person on this list which has been based on economic stabibility.  They are 
all bases on what is eumpamistically called "growth" but in reality is based

on the plunder of some finite resource upon which they are based.>>

Yes, I understand that. I'm pretty sure that we'll keep on doing that while
the finite resources are in, for practical purposes, infinite abundance. No
one ever goes for a difficult solution when an easier one is available. As
you note further along, it just won't happen.


<<  There ARE 
more or less stable economic systems and some of them have been in place in 
the microcosm for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years.  That would

make another homestead discussion altogether since in many ways homesteading

has at its heart the leaning toward a stable personal economy.>>

The problem with these stable economies is that they don't allow for all the
stuff that seems to me to make human life interesting -- advanced science,
being one thing I'd hate to give up. Besides, other pressures -- larger
populations, particularly -- have made most of these economies unstable, if
the pressures haven't destroyed the economies completely.


<<  But for at 
least the past 85 years if not much longer than that, the idea of western 
economics (which, alas, has been exported to all over the world now) has 
operated by expoiting a finite resource and when that resource is depleted 
it sends a tendril or tentacle into some other unspoiled resouce and 
establishes itself there and sucks it dry.  That resource has been wood (to 
the point in some areas it could not be renewed), marine animals, slave 
labor, coal, topsoil, water, and many others leading up to the one that 
accelerated the process all the more - oil.>>

The oil economy has allowed populations to expand, but now that it's on its
downward slide, no one -- government leaders, think tank types, regular
people -- can imagine its disappearance. It would surely avoid much
suffering if we could plan ahead, but I don't think that's possible. People
just aren't built that way.

<<...in the early '90's the western economies latched onto one of the 
last un-expoited resoures - trade differential and the difference between 
the economic status of the affluent and "backward" people of the world - 
that is - the expoitation of other people's labor.>>

Thanks to Gene for posting David Brooke's NYT opinion piece. I'm not
terribly surprised that globalism has benefited some (if Mr. Brooke's data
are right). After all, jobs that, in a local sense, pay well in India are
likely to help Indians. Alas, Mr. Brooke's doesn't address the other side:
what happens to educated Americans whose jobs are exported to India?

<<So now I've come around to what I'd do to address globalsim.  Nothing. 
There's nothing can be done.  IMO globalism was a last measure to keep the 
economy from going into a fatal decline in the mid 90's maybe because of the

oil (maybe not).  The fix can't last long. >>

Oh, gosh. I was hoping you might have some insight. I'm afraid that you,
James, are right, however, although all that leaves is a sure downward slide
to equalized world poverty. So far in our fairly short history on Earth, we
humans have figured out how to cope with changing circumstances. Are we
possibly open enough to a new paradigm to pull our potatoes out of the coals
once again? Or not?

<< The side effects have already 
been a sharp decline in what is produced in the US, a sharp rise in our 
trade deficit, and a sharp rise in the demand for oil (ironic, that) to fuel

the very growth of the economies that make globalism possible.>>

That US trade deficit can certainly cause an inequality that will crash the
whole system if it keeps growing. The Chinese and Japanese have been lending
us money like crazy because we're buying the junk they produce. At what
point do they quit? After all, not having markets is gonna be very, very bad
for them.

<<"Growth" is accelerating.  There is a price to pay, or as Shakespeare put 
it, there will will be "a great reckoning in a small room.">>

Which play?

> at least the socialists are addressing human needs. Fascists aren't.

<<It never works that way.  There are 
very few human needs that socialism need address if socialist-like 
governements (and fascists-like as well) would get off people's back, they'd

not have the need to begin with.  Socialism no more actually addresses human

needs than if you were to break someone's leg and give them some crutches 
address their need to walk.>>

The experiment of truly getting the government "off people's backs" won't
happen, but it would, I'm sure, be instructive if it did. All, or nearly
all, of the regulation imposed by the government was in response to
something awful that industry did. I really don't want diseased meat in my
sausage -- not that I eat much sausage these days -- but I'm sure it would
be there if we didn't have laws against it. Actually, the corporations
having taken over the regulatory arm of government, my response has been to
quit eating sausage (and most other prepared foods).

Which brings us back to homesteading where we can at least control the food
we eat.

<<Alas, that 'economy' in the minds and musings of most has now deteriorated

into a vision of idle consumption.  I have begun to posit to anyone who has 
a such a vision for the world to first imagine that their vision has been 
realized and then voluntarily live NOW as if that vision had come to pass. 
For example, a friend who drives her SUV 60 miles to a rally protesting oil 
drilling in ANWR.  First live yourself as if we no longer prospected for oil

and THEN protest it.>>

Hmmmm, good point. 

I am constantly reminded that a life of consumption is a normal life. In the
end, of course, I suppose I'm as big a consumer as anyone else. (Economic
realities really do run our lives.) I commute 20 miles (one way) to work at
a job with good benefits (which I would never have taken but it was way too
painful to deny my late husband medical care when I could get it for him by
enslaving myself to the state, and now -- as I approach 60 -- I can see that
I'd rather have insurance for major surgeries than figure out how to pay for
them otherwise). Friends wonder why I don't just move into a nice condo in
Springfield and save myself from taking care of chickens, goats, and
assorted other dependents. I try to explain that for me there wouldn't be a
point, since I work to live rather than live to work. Perhaps, in the end,
I'm just supporting a lifestyle, rather than making myself an independent
economic unit. 

Oh well, I won't live forever, and I rather like my life as I'm living it
now. In the end, we're all dead...

Marie