permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

> On Aug 4, 2016, at 8:36 AM, Georg Parlow <g.parlow@gmx.at> wrote:
> 
>> That scenario makes real solutions easier to see. More acceptance of the 
>> need for birth control, and greater redistribution of concentrated wealth. 
>> Those would be my own starting priorities. 
> 
> Correct me if I am wrong, but in my eyes these are not "real solutions", 
> but just pipe dreams once again. Or else - how actually DO you start on 
> these?
> 

I think of acceptance of the need for birth control and redistribution of 
wealth as goals, not solutions. A solution tells you how to do something, not 
where you want to get.

For reducing population, Indonesia provides a telling example (as do a number 
of other countries). I was there in the 1980s for an extended visit. 
Everywhere I went, people proudly told me how they were having small 
families, even though they came from a large family. The government had sent 
teams into every town and village in the 1970s, focusing primarily on the 
women, telling them the advantages of small family (less time spent pregnant, 
more money from having fewer mouths to feed, etc,) and set up birth control 
dispensaries everywhere. 

The birth rate dropped from 5.6 children per woman in 1960 to 2.6 in 2000, 
and it’s still at 2.6. Remember, too, that this is a Muslim country, so they 
aren’t that backward (not like the Catholics!)

The real solution is education of women. The other solution is simple 
affluence, in which raising a child becomes incredibly expensive, rather than 
in agrarian societies where children are viewed as workers. That’s what did 
it in Europe (1.4 children per woman, well below replacement) and the US. But 
the affluence route isn’t as open as it used to be.

Redistribution of wealth, if we can’t totally dismantle corporate capitalism 
(now, there’s a goal!), has often been addressed by confiscatory tax rates. 
In 1944-45, US income above $200,000 ($2.4 million in 2009 dollars) was taxed 
at 94%. $14,000 per year ($168,000 today) was taxed at 50%, and it went up 
fast from there. The next 25 years saw the US middle class have a higher 
standard of living than any time before or after. There are other solutions 
(e.g., campaign finance reform) but taxation is a straightforward one. 

Toby
tobyhemenway.com

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