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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Capitalism works fine, I just don't want it.

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  • From: Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Capitalism works fine, I just don't want it.
  • Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 21:57:25 -0700

On Saturday, July 19, 2003, at 12:26 PM, robscott@sdf.lonestar.org wrote:

Not what already-existing system do we want, but what not-yet-existing
system do we want?

Really good question. I've been hanging around with some people who are trying to apply the concept of open-source software to social and economic systems. Great things about open source: 1) The sum of all capital is available to everyone, all the time. So I'm not dependent on just the little hoard I manage to accumulate; I get to leverage my ideas off of the entire public domain (kind of like the way nature uses the accumulated wisdom of billions of years, stored up in DNA and elsewhere, to design new systems). 2) It's based on an abundance model, not scarcity: we believe there's enough to go around, so that I don't need exclusive ownership of some piece of it to feel secure. 3) It points out the weakness in private ownership, which is that it withdraws potential capital from a common pool where better minds (or simply more minds) than the owner's could be working from it and using it.

I'm tired of hearing from the business Right that "now that communism is dead, there is no alternative to capitalism." Open source offers a way of thinking that goes beyond private ownership without state ownership. There's a lot to be worked out here, of course, and it takes a certain maturity to see the benefits, but it points in a fruitful direction. It's also easiest to do with information, "intellectual property," (nice oxymoron) and services, and harder with goods, but since goods are becoming a smaller part of the economy all the time, there's a lot of room for the ideas to develop.

Toby
_____________________________________________
For a look at my book on ecological gardening,
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, visit
http://www.chelseagreen.com/Garden/GaiasGarden.htm


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