Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] conservatism

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: tom <tom@honeychrome.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] conservatism
  • Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:09:15 -0500

I just happened to read "A Prosperous Way Down" by Howard Odum. Though his writings on systems and ecology apparently influenced Holmgren, and this particular book screamed 'permaculture' on nearly every page, the word didn't actually appear once. Its not written in the most cohesive and elegant manner, but had some really great points and perspectives to impart, not least the beginnings of a strong framework for making compelling, systems and full accounting- based arguments against the notion that free-market capitalism is the right mechanism to confront our planet and culture's transformation. He doesn't attack capitalism in and of its self, but argues that it was/is a system that very efficiently served a purpose for a particular kind of world, but that world is changing and our economic system must change with it. Pro free-trade/free-market unbounded capitalists present themselves as pragmatic and figure-based and it seems often those who see a bigger picture are left responding with 'softer' points about ethics, or morality. Odum's thesis begins to get at a means of successfully arguing against free-trade/market unbounded capitalism in the terms those supporting the system so often use, and a means of quantifying and forcing the inclusion of those things that are so often 'externalized' from the argument (not unlike the way corporate entities externalize all manner of things they don't like or want to deal with!).




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page