Given the news these days, Katie's question of how to handle credit is a
timely one! What has been called, variously, money-lending, rentierism,
usury, etc. has exerted parasitic drag on economies by lenders who siphon
off profits without creating real wealth. Presumably that is why, as
scripture has it, Jesus threw the money lenders out of the temple.
It was not clear from the Vermont article how the credit pool worked
there, but surely many on this forum are familiar with institutions that
provide credit free of charge in a revolving pool. One can imagine such
an institution, working at a community level. If it made credit decisions
democratically, it could be one of the main institutions that expressed
in economic terms the values and goals of the community, and thus could
powerfully influence the shape and operation of the community and its
quality of life. It would require a community that understood the
requirements of sustainability: that investment and concomitant resource
use stay within carrying capacity = the maximum indefinitely supportable
ecological load.
Operating at national scale in Cuba I have seen a non-usurious capital
investment system sometimes fall victim of bureaucratic inertia and
delays, but at a local scale it could avoid those problems and become an
alternative and parallel way to serve the same function as town
governments in accumulating and allocating capital investment, without
having to support a parasitic class of private capitalists.
Karl North
Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown, New York USA
www.geocities.com/northsheep/
"Mother Nature never farms without animals" - Albert Howard
"Pueblo que canta no morira" - Cuban saying
On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:07:47 -0400 Katie Quinn-Jacobs
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I think during times of transition like ours there is always the
> danger
> of slipping into the old paradigm for what appear to be solutions.
>
> Well-known patterns, like growth economics, however won't work in
> the
> end if systemic change is underway. Boutique food production
> designed to
> tap into the discretionary income of the upper tier to pull a
> municipality out of economic decline certainly falls into this
> category. Ultimately, it's a dead end since the discretionary
> income is
> dependent on the waning economic paradigm. Some - but not all -of
> what's
> happening in the VT town featured in this article seems to fall into
>
> that category of commerce. What I found interesting, however, was
> the
> example of collaboration between the vendors and farmers in the
> piece.
>
> I still haven't encountered a well-tested, successful economic
> paradigm
> that isn't based on growth that can serve in the stead of capitalism
> as
> we know it. So it feels like our moorings are coming undone without
> a
> viable alternative to pursue. As we begin to develop local markets,
> how
> can we relocalize goods and services without an economic model to
> guide
> the exchanges? Is there one? Bartering? Co-operatives? How do we
>
> handle credit? Even in the land of Ithaca Hours economics seems to
> be
> the missing link.
>
> -- Katie Q-J
>
>
>
> Jon Bosak wrote:
> > [Karl North:]
> >
> > | These initiatives are all good food for thought, but we need to
> > | bear in mind that Vermont is a special case.
> >
> > Yes, but so is Tompkins County.
> >
> > | In recent decades it has been transformed by the invasion of
> > | permanent residents from moneyed classes that represent the
> upper
> > | tier of the two tier US economy that has emerged in these
> > | decades. Without their money flowing through the local economy,
> > | and particularly the food economy, the kinds of changes that
> this
> > | article describes would be much more difficult.
> >
> > Granted.
> >
> > | I have farmer friends in Vermont who can do things that are
> > | unimaginable in most other places in the US. We can take ideas
> > | from what is happening in Vermont, but we should be careful not
> to
> > | be misled by how easy it is in Vermont to put those ideas into
> > | practice.
> >
> > If any place can do that, we probably can, if we want to.
> >
> > I think the real problem is that the local stuff is way more
> > expensive than what you can get at Wal-Mart. Up till now, that
> > "upper tier of the US economy" has been able to afford the
> > difference, but recent hits to stock prices and looming
> widespread
> > unemployment will likely push most of those people into buying
> the
> > cheap factory-farm stuff along with everyone else. So the
> > question is whether a local farm cooperative of the kind
> described
> > in the article can hang on until the cost of fuel finally levels
> > the playing field by making Wal-Mart food more expensive than
> > locally produced food.
> >
> > Jon
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County
> area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
> >
> > RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
> > [email protected]
> > http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins
> > free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
> >
> >
>
> --
> _______________________________________________
> For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County
> area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
>
> RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
> [email protected]
> http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins
> free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
>
>
____________________________________________________________
Click to become an artist and quit your boring job.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3mzjr6rX2ObnvqROcgNPH1MjqtaXsK8LGOn1hQsvu5ZyGv4x/
_______________________________________________
For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please
visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
[email protected]
http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins
free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
