permaculture

[Sean Maley <semaley@yahoo.com>]

There is already a group discussion on this topic,
having been known as "Land and People" in some
threads.  Here in the NYC area, Green Phoenix has been
working diligently as a model for other bioregions to
duplicate, with the PALS network (derived from the
"Land and People" thread) connecting the bioregions in
terms of idea sharing.  As mentioned previously, Green
Phoenix follows the Henry George view of economics
(owning land is like owning air and water; except
withholding air thankfully draws a murder charge, at
least occasionally).

Our model is to do outreach via permaculture and
sustainability classes and fund raise via sustainable
business development.  With our pool of emerging land
stewards and funds from donations and our
participating businesses, we will purchase land for
ecovillages and buildings for urban groups.  Green
Phoenix will act as the CLT for these imagined
"properties".  To be clear, Green Phoenix will only
hold the token for the land (imaginary property), not
for the actual property built on the land; this has
nothing to do with a money discussion, which is how
some individuals take it.  Not fully discussed is what
to do about a village of land stewards who are
intentionally out of compliance with a pre-arranged
sustainable land use plan (just wanted a home and
didn't really care about the land).

Our land stewards will use permaculture to increase
the biodiversity of the land we hold for them as a
CLT, but they occupy.  Green Phoenix will be the
external entity exposed to the "system", while the
land stewards can work to secure their self-reliance
off the grid.  It will be the mission of Green Phoenix
to secure people's freedom from the grid.  With many
villages and agreements for mobility between them,
more folks will be able to make the leap, as if
leaping from a fire (hence Green Phoenix).

According to the way Henry George's concepts work, our
removal of "low" and "middle" income laborers will
help push, via supply and demand, wage wealth up at
the expense of rent wealth (not our modern definition
of rent, please see "Progress and Poverty" for the
definition intended here).  As we keep pulling
laborers out of the grid, pressuring wages up, we
attack it from two directions: the abandonment many of
us are already attempting and rent destabilization,
which is how the grid manages control (wage wealth and
rent wealth are inversely related; interest wealth, or
the increased value from applying labor to land,
tracks with wage wealth).  This attack is subtle.  
"Reducing the burdens of government" would be a
legitimate charitable pursuit.  So this plan, by
pulling people out of the grid, is a charitable
pursuit worthy and attractive to "wealthy" individuals
looking for a feel good.  Contemporary economists
reject Henry Georges ideas, so won't believe it can
work. These same people will be excited by the
perceived ensuing tax benefits from what they hope to
be a reduction in welfare costs; slackers will likely
stay behind to sap the system.

The more land we rescue, the more people we can pull
out of the fire.  The question is what the critical
point will be for labor wealth collapse within the
grid.  The land stewards outside the grid will need to
maintain traditional economic activity, not as a
dependence, but more like a video game.  This is
important, as the grid may otherwise fight back before
we are ready to pull the plug on it.  Where to explore
strategically how to distract the cronies, while this
happens and setting up appropriate businesses will be
the part I haven't yet thought as much about as the
rest.  This would have to be catered to each
bioregion, so as to not stand out in terms of local
fashions, customs, sensibilities, resources, etc.

Generally, it would make sense to encourage local
groups to organize into tribes of a sort.  These
tribes would essentially be a purchase and investment
club.  The goals of any tribe would be a mutual
financial security, which includes an eventual common
property purchase and development to secure themselves
from the effects of rent wealth.  Urban groups would
pool to purchase apartment buildings and become an
expanded CSA consumer (go beyond food from the farm
and supply labor to a small economy with a farm). 
Rural groups would develop a property to be the
farming part of the urban and rural connection.  The
city provides cooperative style labor (local
currency), while the rural arm provides natural
resources for the urban masses to apply themselves.

Just brainstorming, take it easy on me.  My interest
is perfecting these ideas, not debating them.


-Sean.


-Sean.

--- "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net> wrote:

> Martin Naylor wrote:
> 
> > one way to get the planet together would be to get
> all the groups who know what'-s going on and select
> a group to form a super group, 
> > with money suplied from the original groups like
> green peace wilderness permaculture the lists goes
> on till about 90% of the people 
> > on the planet are represented, with a group who
> has a lot of money to act with wisdom, this idea was
> originaly in grist
> 
> True pyramid power; a "good" pyramid scheme to save
> the Earth and its 
> peoples. Of course, it would be decentralized but
> networked with
> approved decision-making algorythms at the data
> storage/processing level
> (remember Mother in Alien, for sci-fi fans?).
> Who would form the baseline group, i.e. the base of
> the pyramid, the men 
> and women in the street? Where would they come from
> and how would they 
> be pursuaded to participate and how would they be
> connected to the 
> communications/data/decision-making network?
> > 
> > souscayrous <souscayrous@tiscali.fr> wrote:
> > Hello everyone, why is this hand hidden? There is
> nothing hidden about the
> > fertility of earth except the human practices that
> reduce fertility; it is
> > only when we regard the infertile world we have
> made that we begin to
> > question whether the earth can provide. The earth
> can support not only the
> > current human population but current non-human
> life too, providing we allow
> > it to provide.
> > 
> > We might also wonder at the use of the term
> 'surplus', to whom is this
> > 'surplus' surplus? It has been written that even
> the loss of a single straw
> > can allow an agriculture to go awry.
> > 
> > We have created myriad worlds with which to
> disguise earth; God, gods,
> > money, science, Progress, metaphysics, even words.
> We are permaculturalists
> > or respond to Permaculture because we recognise
> the problems that we have
> > created, what we have still to realise is that no
> new knowledge or no new
> > 'hidden hand' is going to save the earth for us.
> What are we going to learn
> > from new moon shots? What are we going to learn
> from bioengineering? A few
> > of us might very well learn to extend our lives
> beyond 100 years (while the
> > average age of mortality continues to fall), but
> what is it exactly we need
> > this extended life for?
> > 
> > We are the species that invented knowing and our
> knowledge allows us to
> > believe the universe is centred upon us. But there
> have been ages without
> > humanity and there will be ages again without us,
> how then will our vaunted
> > knowledge look?
> > 
> > Jamie
> > Souscayrous
> 
> Hello Jamie, after a long while. You write so well.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> LL
> 
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