Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Ryan Albinger" <ryalbinger@earthlink.net>]

There is a reason I used the word value and money over saying dollars.  Not
everyhting can be measured in a currency, but a currency is sometimes the
easiest measure people can relate to accross a geographically diverse
group.  And the other thing being value can be viewed however the beholder
desires.

When I try to the value of one gallon of fuel into US dollars and equating
human labor against it, I am giving the analogy to the potenial of that 1
gallon of fuel.  As long as we have fuel, or others have fuel, to replace
'fuel' labor with human labor, we are in an uphill battle.  If the
competitor can get the same work out of $3 gallon of fuel as $25/hour of
human labor, the need to achieve a lot more out of human labor is tricky. 
Grow your own fuel on your own farm and produce it on your own farm, the
ideal local economy. 

Ryan


> [Original Message]
> From: Liz <liz@allslash.org>
> To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: 12/27/2007 10:31:45 AM
> Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Efficiency
>
> At 09:27 AM 12/27/2007, you wrote:
> >First question, where will the money come from to create the millions of
> >good paying occupations and rural prosperity?  In order to create an
influx
> >of capital into an economy, local or otherwise, you must generate an
> >outgoing trade of goods at a value less than they can acquire it
elsewhere.
>
> This is true only when "value" has the single meaning of dollars (or 
> whatever the local currency may be). That's one of our problems, that 
> we equate value only with bottom line cost in money.
>
> And no, such an economy can't be "created." It has to grow and evolve 
> from the efforts of the people who participate in it. The situation 
> we have now wasn't created overnight, after all. But the more quickly 
> we make the necessary efforts to return to a local economy, the 
> closer to that we will be when the fragile underpinnings of today's 
> system collapse.
>
>
> >If use of modern machinery replacing hand labor is one of the worst
things
> >to happen to modern society, how do you prospose to pay these people
fairly
> >for their labor.  1 gallon of fuel replaces about 1,000 man hours.  Who
> >will work for $0.003 per hour?  You don't have to use all mechanized
> >equipment, but you also don't need to be absent of mechanization.
>
> Absolutely not. I have nothing against tools. With a spinning wheel, 
> I can make enough yarn to keep my family clothed and warm. With a 
> handspindle, I probably can't, because it takes a lot longer (though 
> that's all people had for many thousands of years, and a handspindle 
> is itself a primitive tool). Tools make labor easier and less 
> dangerous. But they don't replace people (or animals). That's the 
> difference, and I'm very much aware that in some cases, it's an 
> arbitrary difference. I think the distinction should always be that a 
> tool assists labor. It doesn't replace it.
>
> Your analogy of man-hours versus fuel works only in a highly 
> mechanized society where labor is valued only in dollars. If nothing 
> else, in a less mechanized system, the things people need don't cost 
> as much, and the money that is exchanged is more likely to circulate 
> in the local economy rather than going overseas, or even to other 
> parts of a country.
>
> >The end goal is finding the happy medium to everything.
>
> No argument with that. Just to put things in context, I'm an 
> electrical engineer who has worked with computers since 1963. No 
> Luddite, not by a long way. And you are obviously doing what a lot of 
> other people are only talking about (and sometimes saying can't be 
> done). So I don't think we have any real difference of purpose or
intention.
>
> Liz in SW VA
> http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.  
>
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