permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 5:00 AM, Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Mad Bioneer: Why Small-Scale Regenerative Agriculture is so Important
> http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2017/03/why-small-scale-regenerative.html
>

"The problem, as I see it, is a combination of the Industrial Revolution
and Capitalism. Bear with me here. See, prior to the Industrial Revolution,
some 90% of humanity lived a pastoral existence on small family farms. When
the Industrial Revolution hit, it needed two things to function and grow:
it needed workers, and it needed consumers. It is basic supply and demand.
So farmers were encouraged, and sometimes forced, to leave their land and
move to the cities. There, they became a part of the rat race and
Capitalism gained momentum.

In its raw form, Capitalism has some striking similarities with
Imperialism, only instead of extracting wealth from another country, you
are extracting the wealth from your own. In most cases, corporations pursue
profit at all costs. It is the metric by which a company is judged. But the
profit is judged on an annual basis, not long term. The techniques used to
improve the bottom line are numerous, and many are damaging. Wages are
lowered or allowed to stagnate. Production is automated. Environmental
damage or degradation is allowed. Governments are encouraged to give
corporate subsidies. Laws are changed so that the risk is taken on by the
public while profits are kept privately. The list goes on."

][

Capitalism is not the problem, greed is. Without capitalism we would not
have local sustainable regenerative agriculture partly because
the alternative dominating political system, socialism or communism, would
not allow local autonomy and force upfeed of production to
central command. This happened in Russia and Stalin went further to wreak
vengenance on productive, skilled farmers, the Kulaks, virtually
eliminating them along with generations of the very people who knew how to
farm, leaving inept party stooges to do it.

He is right about everything else, though.


-- 
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared