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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] economics reconceived in the service of community
  • Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:59:45 -0700


THIS IS THE REAL FOCUS

"If economics is reconceived in the service of community, it will begin with
a concern for agriculture and specifically for the production of food. This
is because a healthy community will be a relatively self-sufficient one. A
community's complete dependency on outsiders for its mere survival weakens
it. It is often unable to develop the policies it desires for the sake of its
own members, since its survival depends on terms dictated by others. The most
fundamental requirement for survival is food. Hence, how and where food is
grown is foundational to an economics for community.

"The conceptual question that must be further clarified is how much
self-sufficiency is to be sought at what levels of community. The ultimate
end of the new operative policies would be a self-sufficient world in which
al less-than-global units would be dependent for their survival on the
functioning of the global trading system. The opposite extreme would be a
world made up entirely of subsistence farmers and hunters and gatherers.
Their community can hardly extend beyond the tribe or the village. Between
these extremes is an image of a world made up of communities of communities.
The smallest community is the family, the next is the fact-to-face community,
and beyond that are towns and cities, larger regions, nations, continents,
and the world. Obviously, the degrees of self- sufficiency to be sought at
each level vary. What guidelines can help determine what is appropriate?"

For the Common Good
Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable
Future
by Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr.
534 pages, paperback, Beacon Press, 1994, $20.00
http://www.serve.com/ecobooks/comgood.htm





  • [Livingontheland] economics reconceived in the service of community, Tradingpost, 12/10/2004

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