Oops, seems I've touched something off. :-/
>Hi Folks,
>I have been pondering this for years, and I was about to make a post tonight!
>And I just got my energy questions answered in the news letter!
>How do we go about equalizing things? It really is rational, since
>stability is
>more assured. There has to be a way somehow, but it requires turning
>the world on
>its ear.
Or setting it to rights? Even setting it *back* to rights? Which
needn't mean setting it "back", maybe the opposite - freeing it from
what's holding it back.
>In the USA slavery was supposedly abolished, but the economy DEPENDS on a good
>part of the population working for slave wages. It is Impossible for
>everyone to
>get rich.
>How can we see every job as important? Scrubbing commodes is just as
>important as
>being a big brass plated buffoon of a radio talk show host. (A
>purely fictional
>character). Sure the buffoon will look down and say anyone can scrub commodes;
>but will they?
>I like the free enterprise system, but there has to be a way to
>solve some of the
>inequity.
>It is tough in a country where many people don't want to get their
>fingers dirty.
>Sheesh!
>Pulling weeds is a highly underrated activity.
>
>Jay in Carson City
My 2 yen... Fritz Schumacher ("Small is Beautiful - Economics as if
People Mattered"), the Institute for Local Self-Reliance
<http://www.ilsr.org>, many others have a lot to say about this
that's worth listening to. Roberto Verzola, secretary-general of the
Philippine Greens, also has something useful to offer. This is part
of a discussion on another list:
>Economics, properly defined, is the study of human behaviour in the
>marketplace. IT is a BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE. Unfortunately, people are too
>often greedy and the economic models can predict behaviour by reducing
>humans to a collection of pecuniary interests.
>
>So, the problem is not to change economics. The problem is to change
>people's attitude. When that happens, the economist's models will fail.
>
>You can denounce economics all you want, but it is really human behaviour
>that is the problem. That is what we need to address.
>
>Pat
Hi Pat.
I have a different interpretation: it is true that people are
occasionally / often greedy in varying degrees. However economists
idealized this greed and made it the centerpoint of the ideal economic
agent. Then society created a legal person in the perfect image of
this idealized economic agent. This legal person is the
corporation/business firm, the epitome of pure greed. Corporations
(which I'd count as if they were a separate species) have domesticated
many humans and forced them to act and think like corporations too.
This is what we need to address.
Roberto Verzola
There's no reason a commode-scrubber shouldn't earn a living wage for
his useful work. Weed-pulling's a bit more complex - does the
weed-puller own the land? Get a share of the crop? Or is he/she just
a landless ("marginilised") peasant, a migrant labourer? Better, more
sustainable farming methods can mean fewer weed problems - weeds can
be an asset, not to be pulled! Still, whatever, a weed-puller should
also earn a living wage for a useful service.
It's mainly corporate "rights" that skew all these issues. It's the
corporations we don't have room for, at least not in their present
form, not most of them - they've long outlived their original
"limited liability" purpose. Our biggest mistake is in regarding them
as human, as responsible and responsive members of the community -
corporations are NOT merely the people who work them. They're not
even remotely human. They don't respond to human pressures, they
don't have morals or ethics. Their sole aim is to make profits -
anything that makes profit is GOOD. Anything that causes losses is
BAD. That isn't human. Contrary to the greed creed, it's been shown
that most people will knowingly forego gain and actually suffer loss
in order that someone else they don't know, haven't even seen, and
will never encounter again should have a good opinion of them. People
place a high value on kindness and generosity.
Do corporations really contribute, by and large, as claimed? The cant
about "economies of scale" is too often just that, cant - more often
they're flabby, inefficient and wasteful. The recent court case over
AIDS drugs to South Africa and the Third World showed how
corporations really think, behind all the spin. This series of
articles in the LA Times shows the same:
<http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/reports/fda/> The evidence is
loud and clear around us all the time, but we just don't seem to see
it, we explain it away. What sort of people would recycle (?) a
hundred thousand tons of toxic wastes into fertilizer? People
wouldn't, unless they were psychopaths, but to corporations the
bottom line made sound sense.
<http://www.ewg.org/pressstories/seattletimes01292001.html>
Again, it's been shown that communities relying on small-scale local
enterprise fare far better than those with one major corporate
employer. We've had plenty of opinions expressed here on the likes of
ADM and others of that ilk. There's quite a lot on our website about
the greenwashing of corps like Shell and BP Amoco, and the ugly
realities behind it. This is what has to be changed, not economics
itself. Then the free enterprise system makes good sense, not
otherwise.
"Small-scale capitalism works out fine, but as scale increases the
departure from real capitalism becomes more pronounced---profits are
privatized, but costs are socialized. The attendant repair and
maintenance are left to succeeding generations if possible, if not,
to present low and middle income taxpayers." - "tvoivozhd"
"When democracy goes down before monopoly capitalism the result has
been a greedy tyranny, preserving all the vices of capitalism and
extinguishing its virtues."
- Herbert Agar
"If I could wave my hand as the benevolent despot and make a sweeping
change in the U.S. legal system, I would undo the hundred years of
court decisions that have given corporations all the rights of
citizens and relegated all the rest of us living, breathing human
beings to second-class citizenship." - John Stauber
Try a search for "mammoths" in the message archive (or check message #1746).
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/messages
Best
Keith Addison
Journey to Forever
Handmade Projects
Tokyo
http://journeytoforever.org/
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > >>Plentiful energy is currently the preserve of the rich (who waste it,
> > mostly). For most of the world, successful water projects are very
> > local, and low-tech. But there's no need to argue about which is more
> > important, of course they're both important, and both problems are
> > symptoms of an over-riding cause - an unjust and inequitable economic
> > system. If you can call such insanity a "system" at all.<<
> >
> >
> > Keith, when you talk about the inequality and inequity in the world
> > economy, what are your views on this? Basically, what do you mean?
> >
> > Of course the rich waste, but to them they've earned it. If the rest
> > of the world isn't made up of servants, they say, let them rise up and be
> > rich. Self-fulfilling prophecy, I think. I wonder what your solution would
> > be, Keith- i'd just watch out for putting emphasis on supposed human
> > cooperation, goodwill and the urge to go further, faster. God, the
> > philosophy... I hate it. Why in the hell can't people just 'get along',
> > 'love their neighbors', and learn how to live instead of
>consuming? Why, for
> > example, am I, a purty decent guy, not given options to either
>consume or not
> > consume? Most of us don't have a choice; most of us never will. The world
> > might not have a chance, and it's a curse to see the problem without even
> > knowing how to grind yourself into the gears for a start.
> >
> > I'll shut up now, thanks.
> >
> > _JIM
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