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livingontheland - [Livingontheland] RE: ALTERNATIVE VIEWS: new Besherov publication from AEI

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: "Community Food Security Coalition" <comfood-l@listproc.tufts.edu>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] RE: ALTERNATIVE VIEWS: new Besherov publication from AEI
  • Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 22:17:01 -0600


You raise important points, and there are recent trends that provide some
answers. Alternatives for
organizing social, political and economic life are spreading rapidly, such as
community supported agriculture (CSAs), co-ops, home schooling, self
employment, microfarm value added products, the simplicity movement,
alternative energy on or off the grid, the local food movement, "green"
building, and others. All these add up to a sea change in social interaction
and economy, a change full of diversity and energy that doesn't need to be
imagined because it's here right now.

This is the independence and security found in local networking and local
production for local consumption, to the extent practicable. There is no
security or sustainability in isolationist or survivalist approach because it
takes a community to hold some level of self sufficiency and division of
labor. A few decades back, this country was almost entirely composed of more
or less self sufficient small towns and rural areas doing some trade with
regional markets and suppliers of goods. Of course we don't have to turn
back the clock at all. We need the communications and specialization of some
larger industries.

But on the other hand we do not need a "self-reliant utopian community", and
it's a good thing because there aren't any. What we do need is what's
practical and what works, a sustainable economic and social fabric allowing
more local autonomy and individual freedom while allowing networking for
social and economic needs. We don't need more McMansions, McGated
Communities, or McPolitics. We are shovelling fuel for a runaway train, as
Brian Czech wrote in his book by that name -- running out of cheap fossil
fuel, growing gap between rich and poor and between CEOs and janitors,
endless wars, taxes, endless pollution -- the list goes on. Sustainable
alternatives are not just an option but necessary for survival.

The Kentucky farmer, writer, and Engish professor Wendell Berry said it this
way - " People are trying to find ways to shorten the distance between
producers and consumers, to make the connections between the two more direct,
and to make this local economic activity a benefit to the local community.
They are trying to learn to use the consumer economies of local towns and
cities to preserve the livelihoods of local farm families and farm
communities. They want to use the local economy to give consumers an
influence over the kind and quality of their food, and to preserve and
enhance the local landscapes. They want to give everybody in the local
community a direct, long-term interest in the prosperity, health, and beauty
of their homeland." -- Wendell Berry in The Idea of a Local Economy
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/archive_om/Berry/Local_Economy.html

Hundreds of links to resources can be explored from my website at
http://globalcircle.net/ . Esp http://globalcircle.net/community.htm and
http://globalcircle.net/living.htm .

Replies off list are welcome if this interests you.


paul tradingpost@gilanet.com

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
--Henry David Thoreau

That is well said, replied Candide, but we must cultivate our garden.
--Voltaire [Francois-Marie Arouet] Candide


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 8/30/2003 at 10:34 PM Hank Herrera wrote:

>I agree that the standard "dichotomous" view of everything--good versus
>bad, right versus left, protagonist versus antagonist, etc,
>etc--constrains thinking, limits creativity, keeps us from thinking
>outside the box. However it is difficult to imagine alternatives for
>organizing social, political and economic life in the 21st century. I
>can imagine living an isolated life as a survivalist, but I value social
>connectedness and interaction too much. I can imagine living in a
>self-reliant utopian community, but I need too many personal degrees of
>freedom to live in such a tightly cohesive group. And at some point I
>probably will need to trade at least some goods and services with the
>rest of the world, capitalist or socialist.
>
>I would appreciate description of more alternative scenarios.
>
>Hank
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-comfood-l@listproc.tufts.edu
>[mailto:owner-comfood-l@listproc.tufts.edu] On Behalf Of Tradingpost
>Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 10:52 PM
>To: Community Food Security Coalition
>Subject: RE: ALTERNATIVE VIEWS: new Besherov publication from AEI
>
>
> You won't mind if I dismiss that as a string of illogical what
>ifs. No one seems able to think outside the box and beat the false
>choice between capitalism and socialism. In other words, we can be
>slaves to one system or the other, and no other options. Not at all.
>That assumes everybody will have to live under a single, uniform system
>whether they like it or not, be it capitalism or socialism or some
>in-between ism or other. I don't have to. My very survival and
>wellbeing will not be at the mercy of a central bank, a congress, some
>clown in the White House, or the grain cartels and other transnational
>corporate middlemen.
>
>paul tradingpost@gilanet.com
>
>Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
>--Henry David Thoreau
>
>That is well said, replied Candide, but we must cultivate our garden.
>--Voltaire [Francois-Marie Arouet] Candide
>
>*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
>
>On 8/27/2003 at 9:27 PM Hank Herrera wrote:
>
>>Thanks for bringing this history to the conversation, Ken.
>>
>>The situation is thick with irony and contradiction. As wealth
>>concentrates in an ever shrinking number of people and companies, we
>>have fewer jobs and lower incomes, and therefore as you point out, less
>>consumer spending. Of course, the demand for ever cheaper goods and
>>services grows, and the company responding to that demand gets
>>wealthier. At least in theory following such a trend let's say 1% of
>>the people have all the money and 99% of the people have none. As we
>>move toward that point, won't the people with money have to make sure
>>that the rest of the people have enough money to live, i.e., to spend
>on
>>food, shelter, clothing, etc? Won't they have to guarantee incomes for
>>the folks with no work, i.e., redistribute wealth? Doesn't such a
>>scenario of uber-capitalism sound more and more like socialism, with
>>centralized ownership of the means of production and exchange and
>>redistribution of wealth "to each according to need?"
>>
>>Go figure. Capitalism begetting socialism and a new global economic
>>order.
>>
>>Hank
>>
>>






  • [Livingontheland] RE: ALTERNATIVE VIEWS: new Besherov publication from AEI, Tradingpost, 08/31/2003

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