permaculture

["Jara" <jara@otenet.gr>]

Dear Marimike,

  It has been my experience and the experience of some that I know that the 
old addage 'give freely to those around you who need what you have and your 
needs will be met' is as true today as it has ever been.

  I will not bore you with examples of how this has panned out for me and 
others, nor will I bore you with my opinion how this mechanism works but I 
can assure you that work it does.

 Doing away with a medium of exchange and the whole direct exchange system 
is not a fanciful dream that is unrealistic and unattainable. In fact it is 
an inevitable development of human society that is coming our way.

Yours,

Andrew.



> From: Marimike6@cs.com
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Educating about money
> << 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.