permaculture

[John Schinnerer <eco_living@yahoo.com>]

Aloha,

I see a big fat irony in the "economic" angle of all this (and by "all
this" I mean the Afghan PC thread, my pokes at the worldwatch Marshall
plan idea, the links to other economic visions, etc.)...namely:

The "laws" or codes of behavior for trade and commerce in Islam (not to
be confused with what any particular Islamic individual or nation may
actually *do* in trade and commerce) are most fundamentally different
from what we practice as "economics" - and to me they make a whole lot
more sense in terms of permaculture-relevant concepts such as
personal/communal independence/interdependence and integrity and
sustainability of economic systems.

Don't have an online reference, but there's a book called "Islam and
Ecology," edited by Fazlun Khalid with Joanne O'Brien (ISBN
0-304-32377-2), one of a series on world religions and ecology.  One
chapter is on "Trade and Commerce in Islam" - this alone indicates that
Islam implicitly recognizes that trade and commerce is inseparable from
ecology, quite the opposite of dominant theories of "economics."

There's also a brief essay, "Islamic Banking," by Rami G. Khouri, in
the book "Mindfulness and Meaningful Work," edited by Claude Whitmyer
(ISBN 0-938077-54-6) that fills in some other details.  "Amish
Economics" by Gene Logsdon in this same book is also quite rich (any
pun's a good pun, I say... ;-)


=====
John Schinnerer, MA
--------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
Food - Shelter - Community
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net

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