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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Livingontheland Digest, Vol 427, Issue 7

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Livingontheland Digest, Vol 427, Issue 7
  • Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2014 19:24:52 -0700


Some interesting points there & some I haven't thought much about - "Debt is a promise to consume future resources". Yet after a lifetime of study I concluded that no system is worth defining or debating if it can't be implemented. A constitution is only as good as the government implementing it. And economics can't be separated out of the power politics. My own practical approach is to opt out of consumerism where feasible, buy secondhand everything, & find some income in retirement by producing one of the necessities of life - food. Most people like to eat frequently. Plus I only grow & sell locally. So I walk the walk. No matter what comes, this skill will be in demand so long as people survive in some fashion.

Climate? Problem is food production has long been talked about without context of climate, phosphate, freshwater, economy, fossil fuels, etc. All tied together. We're just starting to see some context articles with the extreme drought in California's central valley, & the waste of water by fracking. We do know the most vulnerable populations are a billion or so of the planet's poorest, which happens to fall largely on coastal cities & villages. Think Bangladesh. Or Miami for that matter. Global warming, peak energy, economic decline - all interdependent - won't be prevented or mitigated. Our kids & grandkids keep planning for the future. But not for the most certain kind of future.


On 2/7/2014 3:49 PM, Dan Conine wrote:
John D'hondt wrote:

Now take a situation that you see a small child fall in one meter deep water
where it is drowning.
Are you a capitalist who does not want to make his pants wet when there is no
profit in it for you?
Or are you a communist who has the ability to save that child (in need of
help) and you do so without a second thought?

I think it is high time that we define these loaded words, anarchy, communism
and capitalism from time to time so that we keep understanding one another.
Maybe the NSA can learn something from it.
John
I could go on this topic all day, John.
My latest concern is that what is being promoted as "capitalism" (using
money to determine demand/value) is really not. What we have for the
most part is something else; the basis of Imperialism, which is
Consumerism. Consumerism is a belief that the act of consumption is
regulated by the Invisible Hand (capitalism at least gives a nod to the
production of the money by government as a regulating mechanism), but
even that belief is flawed, and we end up with unfettered rapacity
because the Invisible Hand is only a myth.

I think that what you defined as communism is really socialism (the good
of the society over the individual), where communism "from each
according to ability, to each according to need" is a flawed idea that
doesn't consider the needs of our future selves, only the present.
Socialism is Humanism writ large, and as such, is also flawed (the
belief that the needs of people overrides everything else). Humanism is
flawed because people are dependent on their environment, and cannot
survive for long if humans are allowed to consume the resources that
their future selves will need (unmoderated activities). A true
capitalist would save the drowning child because the child is a future
resource to be exploited economically (an investment), whereas a
socialist might think the child is one more mouth for the community to
feed. I guess it depends on my attitude today, because I can argue the
opposite, too.
A true environmentalist would rescue the child as another servant of the
environment (assuming it is a community of real environmentalists, not
the capitalist-parasite kind we usually see).

In the long run, it is our generosity toward the environment which will
determine if we persist or go extinct. We can even apply capitalism
toward that goal, but the bullies who own the means of production will
not go quietly. The opposite of capitalism isn't communism or socialism,
though. The opposite of capitalism is a a sales tax. In the U.S., the
majority of campaign and lobby levers have set their fulcrum upon the
income tax code. The FairTax proposal attempts to eliminate the income
tax and replace it with a 23% sales tax, and a "prebate" that pays
everyone for the tax cost of basic living expenses. This is not to be
confused with the Flat Tax plan, that is just another income tax break
for the rich.
The sensible thing for socialists and communists to do is to adopt the
FairTax plan and raise the rate until the air and water are clean
(reduce consumerism) and raise the prebate until everyone has enough for
basic living expenses.
As long as we are living in a capitalized democracy (one dollar, one
vote), then the voters should be paid ALL of their dollars and given the
real costs of the goods they buy. The main alternative to sales taxes is
the black market, which is a more localized economic model than the
corporate/military market we have now.
When the sales tax on things is 50% or so, then people will think a
little more about whether to buy those "safe" foods from a corporation
or to grow their own (or barter with a neighbor).
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer because the rich have the
tools to convince the poor to work for them and buy their stuff. The
government follows the money, which is telling the economists that
people WANT to be poorer and work for the rich.
It really is pretty bizarre, especially when all of the pro-economic
systems we use are designed to destroy our own future. Debt is a promise
to consume future resources. Income tax breaks encourage more debt. The
vicious circle is accelerating as government uses debt to increase
resource consumption ("grow the economy").
Meanwhile, the climate seems to be telling us to become nomads and give
up on fixed farming except maybe in the tropics. We've already consumed
a critical resource that was taken for granted: stability.

Dan C.
Belgium, WI

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