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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> I
> absolutely believe that individuals should do all they can to provide
> themselves with the things they need for survival. I am even more sure that
> if we do it alone we will surely perish.
> 

That's interesting.  I am sure of just the opposite.  Unless we do it alone, 
we will suely perish.  This is because our mutual codependency is like a 
chain 
only as strong as its weakest links.  The only real codependency is among 
individuals (or famiilies or groups) capable of going it by their own 
strengths 
except in that circumstance here and there when they must needs rely on their 
neighbors.  When you have people in a chronic state of dependency, even 
codependency, it is a recipe for personal disaster.

In the book from which the subject line of this thread comes, the author 
identified 5 things that brough societies to extinction.  One of them was a 
reliance on another culture, usually by means of trade, which become 
interrupted.  
For example, some of the Pacific islands supported stable populations of 
traditional Polynesian culture so long as there was a long distance ocean 
trade in 
tool grade stone which they themselves did not have.  When something entirely 
outside their influence and not of their own making happened to interrupt 
that 
trade, their way of life was done away with and in many cases everyone died.

What lends to our survival and prosperity is not to be parasitic nor even 
codependent on others, nor government, nor anything, but to be prepared to 
lend 
aid and equally prepared to accept it if such becomes necessary, and then 
only 
to the extent and for as long as necessary.  Mutually benificial trade at 
arm's length is not parasitism nor codependency, but I find on these 
discussions 
that's rarely what's being refered to.

James