permaculture

[Marimike6@cs.com]

<< Money makes it appear fair for one person to retain
their given possessions over others. Superficially,
this certainly looks to distribute resources according
to who deserves it. Then again, our true physical
needs are air, water, food, shelter, and reproduction.
Most of us are swimming amidst our needs, but no
longer recognize what it looks like. If we lie there
in the urban park, basking in the sun, pulling up
dandelion greens to eat... we literally risk arrest: >>

***

Cometh now the Devil's advocate (again).

The experiment has been tried already, that we level everything and give 
everyone an equal share. It didn't work out as well as predicted. When we 
cease to 
respect private possessions we start our trek toward a condition where no one 
has any, and the strongest among us owns it all.

I suppose it was Aristotle-- one of the Dead White Guys anyway-- who 
counselled that we should aspire toward the Golden Mean. To me that means we 
don't 
want to err on the side of defining all value by its monetary number (the 
condition our culture approximates today). But we also don't want to erase 
all 
monetary value entirely, as it provides one of the bases by which you and I 
get to 
have things like these computers, and houses we don't have to build by hand 
if 
we're busy doing something else. 

We have invented this amenity as a convenience. It should be our handmaiden, 
serving our purposes. It shouldn't be our master-- or worse, the end-all of 
existence.

There are many things wrong with the Law now too-- as there are many things 
wrong with money. But should we then erase the Law entirely, and live in our 
pr
imal state? Or should we work toward achieving the reasonable middle, where 
money alone does not write the law but men and women of good will get to 
provide 
some input into its shape and intent.

Post note: As I recall from living in the co-ops back in 1966, the 
arrangement whereby no one owned anything was very popular with the lazy 
layabouts who 
brought nothing home for the table. In time it grew less so with the people 
who 
were doing all the work.