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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] What Causes Poverty? Not a Lack of Money, but a Lack of Social Relationships

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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] What Causes Poverty? Not a Lack of Money, but a Lack of Social Relationships
  • Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2016 12:57:02 -0500

Good news in South Africa. People in Black townships are getting into wine
grape growing and they will be converting an old abandoned cement plant to
a winery. They have just the right soil and climate for grape culture. They
already have several wines on the market, each are named after the
townships where the grapes are grown. Viva Peasants.

This was a PBS TV short news documentary. The link to this video may be
available on their website.

I see things from the perspective of a small market gardener seeking fair
access to available market opportunities, local, regional or beyond. That's
what those South African grape growers sought and got with help from some
good people. They grow their grapes in their back yards, in open public
spaces and in community gardens. The public will get a superior product
that becomes more competitive as more growers go online.

Here is an idea for Ukrainian and Bulgarian Black Earth Region: farmers
service providers and various artisanal producers can construct a product
and services production, warehousing, marketing and distribution network.
We need such a thing here in the USA. With so many people out of work or
underemployed and underpaid, many could use a network like this to make a
living. This would require computers, smartphones and the Internet. Maybe
this isn't a resilient solution but it will be a long time before it goes
away, like refigerators, and the benefit is that it could cover an entire
country, enabling local exchange as well as out of area for distribution of
surplus..

On Sat, Nov 26, 2016 at 11:51 AM, Jason Gerhardt <jasongerhardt@gmail.com>
wrote:

> “What was excluded from that policy was a clear pathway out of poverty,
> like education”. This is sometimes true and very often not true. Education
> is rarely sited high on the list of needs by poor communities when actually
> asked what they need. And I'd argue that social relationships are still
> material, and at the least will require material resources like money to
> build and maintain. The authors thesis suggests otherwise, as if invisible
> structures can be solved and managed invisibly, which is a downright
> harmful supposition to be putting out there, especially in an era that is
> likely to include significant defunding of social programs. I'd like to see
> the author take this and develop a thesis on *what causes a lack of social
> relationships, *which would be where the rubber meets the road for
> solutioning poverty. As usual, academics are very good at describing
> problems, not so good at solving them, and it's a very good debate about
> whether describing problems divorced from solutions is actually a positive
> contribution in the first place.
>
> Here is a phenomenal example of solutioning poverty via social
> relationships and expanded networks. This is a simple connection being
> made, facilitated by ecological thinking. It is unfortunately reliant on
> high technology, which makes it low in resiliency, but demonstrates a real
> world approach that all of us working in poor communities could learn from.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiOXAkZ_fLA
>
> Jason Gerhardt
>
> On Fri, Nov 25, 2016 at 1:26 PM, Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture
> Network <lakinroe@silcom.com> wrote:
>
> > http://bigthink.com/videos/c-nicole-mason-on-poverty-in-america <
> > http://bigthink.com/videos/c-nicole-mason-on-poverty-in-america>
> >
> > What Causes Poverty? Not a Lack of Money, but a Lack of Social
> > Relationships
> >
> > <http://bigthink.com/experts/c-nicole-mason>
> > C. Nicole Mason <http://bigthink.com/experts/c-nicole-mason>
> > Policy and Economic Justice Expert
> > Dr C. Nicole Mason was born in Los Angeles, raised by a beautiful but
> > volatile 16-year-old single mother. Early on, she learned to navigate
> > between an unpredictable home life and school where she excelled. Having
> > figured out the college application process by eavesdropping on the few
> > white kids in her predominantly Black and Latino school, and along with
> the
> > help of a high school counselor, Mason eventually boarded a plane for
> > Howard University, alone and with $200 in her pocket.
> >
> > Mason found a path out of poverty – something that only 4% of America’s
> > impoverished population are able to do. An alarming majority will never
> > rise into the middle class, and so it seems that in the US, if you’re
> born
> > poor, you stay poor. And no one is being very honest about this invisible
> > caste system.
> >
> > Mason is a vocal advocate against the presumption that the poor are poor
> > simply because they don’t help themselves enough. “[In college] we heard
> a
> > lot of things about welfare queens, people living off the system, not
> > wanting to work, women being lazy, having multiple children. And that
> > really wasn’t the reality for the women who were actually impoverished.”
> > Mason found that the policies were detached from reality, and in fact the
> > barriers built into the system (some intended to motivate people) – such
> as
> > time limits, additional child penalties, and few provisions for
> childcare –
> > were ineffective and suppressed social mobility. “What was excluded from
> > that policy was a clear pathway out of poverty, like education,” she
> says.
> >
> > When people think of poverty they think in terms of money and material
> > resources, but a large part of being poor is suffering from a lack of
> > social connections and networks, and living in a low-income area with no
> > infrastructure that enables the leap up to the middle class.
> >
> > If institutions and leaders want to support and elevate poor communities,
> > Mason argues that they need to provide better infrastructure (like
> > libraries, parks, good grocery stores, and hospitals) as well as bridging
> > programs both within the community and, very importantly, outside of it,
> so
> > people can get in contact with people outside of their normal social
> > network. “We just need to be honest about what it really takes for
> > everybody to have a fair shot at the American Dream,” she says.
> >
> > Dr. C. Nicole Mason's new book is Born Bright: A Young Girl's Journey
> from
> > Nothing to Something in America <http://www.indiebound.org/
> > book/9781250069924>.
> >
> >
> > permaculture mailing list
> > permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> > subscribe/unsubscribe|user config|list info:
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
>
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>
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--
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared




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