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It's funny but I would have been in the pro-business group until fairly recently (for the most part, I always had my limits). Having a lot of time to read and study things the past year, along with some trips around the country, have entirely changed my views. I'm absolutely convinced of peak oil's truth. Climate change is becoming something I can observe in the woods I hunt and trap in. It's having serious impacts on the plants, trees, wildlife and fish already. My trip to the Midwest in August this year, looking at things I've seen before but with a different perspective, was changing (and despite a plan of going to MI for a couple years for my master's I decided very quickly I wanted to get out of that region). A large swath of this country is simply an industrial wasteland. Growth came and left, leaving in its wake a filthy, destroyed ecosystem. You can't really imagine Cleveland or Grand Rapids once having been so clean and full of diverse life, a wilderness so wonderful which brought the wilderness hunters to those areas, areas so rich in game and timber native peoples thrived for centuries. Today they're disgusting, industrial junk rotting away, mile after mile of junky buildings, water that smells of chemicals, etc. This nation once got all its oil from that area, Ohio and PA, but production there is miniscule. Oil is not limitless. The fields of flat cornfields in Ohio and Michigan may be yielding massive crops now, but the soil is approaching true exhaustion, vital micro-organisms and micro-nutrients are absent because of the chemical use (and groundwater is hopelessly polluted by those chemicals), and as petroleum based fertilizer becomes too expensive we could have something quite disasterous on our hands. It took thousands of years to form that soil in the floors of great forests which are now gone. It will take centuries for forests to reclaim that area and rebuild the soil.
A full century after commerce introduced the blight, we're just reaching where we might be able to bring back chestnuts to the Eastern forests. Conservation right now is in a race against global trade, trying to fight introduced diseases, fungi and invasive species which are constantly being introduced, besides the destruction of habitat by development. Butternut canker, Asian longhorned beetle, emeral ash borer, and countless other disasters are destroying our most important resources. Thousands of species worldwide are threatened with extinction because of the current economic model. Endless growth is not possible and it's destroying our world. I was in the NEK earlier this month on a hunting trip, and I was in Maine last week checking out an area I may even relocate to next year (undecided at this point). I'm still surprised at how much healthy land there is here in Northern New England, but it won't remain this way if we want to emulate Southern New England, NY, NJ, etc., with development. And in spite of what we have, the product of an economy that left this region behind, we're still missing a lot. If this was 200 years ago, when I was in Lewis, VT a few weeks ago, I would have seen caribou, wolves, catamounts, maybe a wolverine, marten would have been common, there may even have been passenger pigeons around, but as it is I count myself lucky we have still have moose, few marten and a returning lynx population, thanks largely to the bogs of Lewis and surrounding areas being so undesirable to developers.
I guess the point of my longwinded posts is this: the world is at a crossroads. The current economic system simply will no longer work, but I fear stubborn people will persist until we have mass extinctions of wildlife and plants, making things worse for people in the future who will need them. I don't see any sense in imitating our Southern neighbors with development. Things are hard here, I know this all to well firsthand as I've had full time employment for 3 months out of the past 4 years, but a dollar store, a walmart, etc., is not going to save us at all. We need to look at what will work in the next century, not what temporarily worked for 50 years while oil was cheap.
You don't sounds crazy, it is just a different way of looking at things. Trust me I love the idea of a simpler life, heck that is why I work where I do, to afford to be where I want to be in my free time, in the woods.
I just can't fathom today's society getting from A to B.
Well, I think it's simply inevitable that we'll get from A to B. The desires of mainstream society will have no real impact on that. The problem is, most of the country has no plans for how they'll deal with that. I think it's possible for VT to survive that transition with a plan. Building these big box stores, and then building bigger roads, more infrastructure, etc., to deal with it as it grows Williston-style, is not the answer to any of our current or future problems. I really don't think the next century is going to be real pleasant for the U.S., but it's a career ender for any politician to suggest any of what I've said here. It's a national delusion that we can have endless material abundance and growth.
What arctichomesteader said. Read what he/she wrote twice.
Dollar stores are a symptom of the industrialization/globalization/corporatization-and-extraction disease, and in no way any sort of cure.
Yes, we will all have to decrease expenses. I grew up in a nice middle-class suburb of southern NE, and I remember when frozen vegetables and TV dinners were big new things, and relatively expensive. As were moon landings. We just aren't going to be able to power that sort of life anymore, and there is no point in blaming the messengers.
"Growth" is a red herring, a false god whom we have been led to worship. If every MBA over the last few decades had studied thermodynamics instead, we'd be in a whole lot better shape today. "Economic Growth" as we know it can only occur in an exponentially-expanding system, whereas we live in a finite system. Several hundreds of years' worth of empires (Dutch, British, Spanish, American) inculcated us in a system which indeed expanded exponentially (as our monetary system impels it to do), but only by cheating: by sleight-of-hand: by bringing new conquered lands and resources into the system and PRETENDING that they came from within the system itself—pretending that capitalism created profitability and well-being out of nothing.
Now that there is no more easy "elsewhere" to conquer or mine for profit, the capitalist system is breaking down, as it must do, because it only has ever had one continuously-accelerating forward gear. This is not an ideological argument but a logical and factual one, an unavoidable mathematical one. You can *wish* for capitalism to work, but at some point, if no one is putting fresh oil or slaves and/or topsoil into the hopper, nothing comes out the other end anymore.
The point we are at now is that of the Pacific Islanders and their cargo cults: building radio towers out of bamboo ("enterprise centers") and expecting airplanes to come back and bring us stuff.
Arctichomesteader, the ski crowd will be greatly thinned out on its own except for the true 1-percenters.
Lol, I don't think anyone would claim a big box store of any type is a cure for the world's ills.
So are you preaching against capitalism? What is your roadmap to avoid the inevitable end of capitalism as we know it?
If we want to blame every MBA we can also blame every internet expert for doing nothing about it as well.
What I do believe is factual is resource limitations, population growth and consumption outpacing supply on many levels. All very real things by any measure. Unfortunately, culturally I think we are very competitive and programmed to always seek "growth" to "expand" and "to get more" we don't easily say "we have enough". The concepts of a mature market or saturated market don't seem to resonate on a macro level. That is the tidal wave anti-capitalists are swimming against.
The consumption of resources and the theoretical end of certain very crucial resources (oil and coal) are certainly a large wall speeding towards the current world economic engine.
Now that we have discussed the end of the world as we know it, since we know progress in any direction starts slowly with a few well chosen "gateway" concepts; what can the people of Vermont do to invest time and energy in enterprises which put the state in a better position to succeed? Building bunkers isn't a good answer....... :-)
It's funny but I would have been in the pro-business group until fairly recently (for the most part, I always had my limits). Having a lot of time to read and study things the past year, along with some trips around the country, have entirely changed my views. I'm absolutely convinced of peak oil's truth. Climate change is becoming something I can observe in the woods I hunt and trap in. It's having serious impacts on the plants, trees, wildlife and fish already. My trip to the Midwest in August this year, looking at things I've seen before but with a different perspective, was changing (and despite a plan of going to MI for a couple years for my master's I decided very quickly I wanted to get out of that region). A large swath of this country is simply an industrial wasteland. Growth came and left, leaving in its wake a filthy, destroyed ecosystem. You can't really imagine Cleveland or Grand Rapids once having been so clean and full of diverse life, a wilderness so wonderful which brought the wilderness hunters to those areas, areas so rich in game and timber native peoples thrived for centuries. Today they're disgusting, industrial junk rotting away, mile after mile of junky buildings, water that smells of chemicals, etc. This nation once got all its oil from that area, Ohio and PA, but production there is miniscule. Oil is not limitless. The fields of flat cornfields in Ohio and Michigan may be yielding massive crops now, but the soil is approaching true exhaustion, vital micro-organisms and micro-nutrients are absent because of the chemical use (and groundwater is hopelessly polluted by those chemicals), and as petroleum based fertilizer becomes too expensive we could have something quite disasterous on our hands. It took thousands of years to form that soil in the floors of great forests which are now gone. It will take centuries for forests to reclaim that area and rebuild the soil.
A full century after commerce introduced the blight, we're just reaching where we might be able to bring back chestnuts to the Eastern forests. Conservation right now is in a race against global trade, trying to fight introduced diseases, fungi and invasive species which are constantly being introduced, besides the destruction of habitat by development. Butternut canker, Asian longhorned beetle, emeral ash borer, and countless other disasters are destroying our most important resources. Thousands of species worldwide are threatened with extinction because of the current economic model. Endless growth is not possible and it's destroying our world. I was in the NEK earlier this month on a hunting trip, and I was in Maine last week checking out an area I may even relocate to next year (undecided at this point). I'm still surprised at how much healthy land there is here in Northern New England, but it won't remain this way if we want to emulate Southern New England, NY, NJ, etc., with development. And in spite of what we have, the product of an economy that left this region behind, we're still missing a lot. If this was 200 years ago, when I was in Lewis, VT a few weeks ago, I would have seen caribou, wolves, catamounts, maybe a wolverine, marten would have been common, there may even have been passenger pigeons around, but as it is I count myself lucky we have still have moose, few marten and a returning lynx population, thanks largely to the bogs of Lewis and surrounding areas being so undesirable to developers.
I guess the point of my longwinded posts is this: the world is at a crossroads. The current economic system simply will no longer work, but I fear stubborn people will persist until we have mass extinctions of wildlife and plants, making things worse for people in the future who will need them. I don't see any sense in imitating our Southern neighbors with development. Things are hard here, I know this all to well firsthand as I've had full time employment for 3 months out of the past 4 years, but a dollar store, a walmart, etc., is not going to save us at all. We need to look at what will work in the next century, not what temporarily worked for 50 years while oil was cheap.
It's funny but I would have been in the pro-business group until fairly recently (for the most part, I always had my limits). Having a lot of time to read and study things the past year, along with some trips around the country, have entirely changed my views. I'm absolutely convinced of peak oil's truth. Climate change is becoming something I can observe in the woods I hunt and trap in. It's having serious impacts on the plants, trees, wildlife and fish already. My trip to the Midwest in August this year, looking at things I've seen before but with a different perspective, was changing (and despite a plan of going to MI for a couple years for my master's I decided very quickly I wanted to get out of that region). A large swath of this country is simply an industrial wasteland. Growth came and left, leaving in its wake a filthy, destroyed ecosystem. You can't really imagine Cleveland or Grand Rapids once having been so clean and full of diverse life, a wilderness so wonderful which brought the wilderness hunters to those areas, areas so rich in game and timber native peoples thrived for centuries. Today they're disgusting, industrial junk rotting away, mile after mile of junky buildings, water that smells of chemicals, etc. This nation once got all its oil from that area, Ohio and PA, but production there is miniscule. Oil is not limitless. The fields of flat cornfields in Ohio and Michigan may be yielding massive crops now, but the soil is approaching true exhaustion, vital micro-organisms and micro-nutrients are absent because of the chemical use (and groundwater is hopelessly polluted by those chemicals), and as petroleum based fertilizer becomes too expensive we could have something quite disasterous on our hands. It took thousands of years to form that soil in the floors of great forests which are now gone. It will take centuries for forests to reclaim that area and rebuild the soil.
A full century after commerce introduced the blight, we're just reaching where we might be able to bring back chestnuts to the Eastern forests. Conservation right now is in a race against global trade, trying to fight introduced diseases, fungi and invasive species which are constantly being introduced, besides the destruction of habitat by development. Butternut canker, Asian longhorned beetle, emeral ash borer, and countless other disasters are destroying our most important resources. Thousands of species worldwide are threatened with extinction because of the current economic model. Endless growth is not possible and it's destroying our world. I was in the NEK earlier this month on a hunting trip, and I was in Maine last week checking out an area I may even relocate to next year (undecided at this point). I'm still surprised at how much healthy land there is here in Northern New England, but it won't remain this way if we want to emulate Southern New England, NY, NJ, etc., with development. And in spite of what we have, the product of an economy that left this region behind, we're still missing a lot. If this was 200 years ago, when I was in Lewis, VT a few weeks ago, I would have seen caribou, wolves, catamounts, maybe a wolverine, marten would have been common, there may even have been passenger pigeons around, but as it is I count myself lucky we have still have moose, few marten and a returning lynx population, thanks largely to the bogs of Lewis and surrounding areas being so undesirable to developers.
I guess the point of my longwinded posts is this: the world is at a crossroads. The current economic system simply will no longer work, but I fear stubborn people will persist until we have mass extinctions of wildlife and plants, making things worse for people in the future who will need them. I don't see any sense in imitating our Southern neighbors with development. Things are hard here, I know this all to well firsthand as I've had full time employment for 3 months out of the past 4 years, but a dollar store, a walmart, etc., is not going to save us at all. We need to look at what will work in the next century, not what temporarily worked for 50 years while oil was cheap.
Unfortunately, culturally I think we are very competitive and programmed to always seek "growth" to "expand" and "to get more" we don't easily say "we have enough". The concepts of a mature market or saturated market don't seem to resonate on a macro level. That is the tidal wave anti-capitalists are swimming against.
You are right about it being cultural, which is why I think it's important to keep broaching the subject even when it is uncomfortable to do so (especially then).
Even though you are one of a minority who seems to get what some of us are talking about, l invite you to look at the biases in your own comments: you say "anti-capitalists" are swimming against a tide… but isn't it the "pro-capitalists" who are REALLY swimming against a tide? The tide of our manipulated perceptions and collective druthers is as nothing compared to the actual tide that's due to come in.
Quote:
since we know progress in any direction starts slowly with a few well chosen "gateway" concepts; what can the people of Vermont do to invest time and energy in enterprises which put the state in a better position to succeed?
I'm not saying that VT doesn't have potentially better responses, otherwise I would not be here, BUT look at the quasi-religious nature of your statement above, which is predicated upon there being both "progress" and "success". But who says that there will be either? These are concepts that we think we know the meaning of but, as arctichomesteader points out in describing what we have done to our own home in the process, we don't understand at all.
Americans have a seriously blind spot in not being able to conceive of being defeated, and will—generally speaking—come up with the most convoluted of rationales to define themselves as "exceptional" victors, despite their lying eyes. Look at what has become a political battle over which party doesn't pat America on the back long enough or hard enough! Look at how a majority of us cheered when a mentally-infirm Reagan ("Morning in America") swept sweater-wearing, thermostat-lowering Carter out of office, and defiantly ripped Jimmy's solar panels off the White House. America "doesn't do" sacrifice, or doesn't do it well. Cheney said our lifestyle is "non-negotiable", though, and he's right for once in his life. We cannot negotiate with the laws of physics and thermodynamics.
While we are dithering, Germany has almost quarter, I think, of its electrical power coming from solar panels (not that those are a long-term solution). I really do think it has something to do with America's level of religious mania generally and historically, that salvation is Always Possible if you Only Believe hard enough or in the most orthodox way. This leaves people ripe for being misled down any number of garden paths, and makes them angry and cantankerous (but not unbelievers, never unbelievers) when things don't turn out as promised. Unfortunately, as you allude to, it is hard to get people to see clearly about their religions, and the religion of progress and success is certainly just as compelling as most religious beliefs on offer.
I don't want to pick on anyone in particular, but to understand how dire this situation is, one only has to consider how, in some states, the response to our current predicament is to eliminate the teaching of critical thinking in schools. Eliminate critical thinking, eliminate the problems that critical thinking reveal, no?
This is a battle thousands of years old (think of the Greek atomists writing about the Nature of Things), which may never be won, but all we can do is to live as coherently as we can with what we know to be true. Maybe the battle of Truth over Fiction can never be won, but we should at least think about designing a new Fiction that will work better than our current fiction.
Just had to post this quote I came across today, as it is perfectly suited for the topic.
Quote:
The junk merchant doesn’t sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client. ― William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch Links 10/23/12 « naked capitalism
You are right about it being cultural, which is why I think it's important to keep broaching the subject even when it is uncomfortable to do so (especially then).
Even though you are one of a minority who seems to get what some of us are talking about, l invite you to look at the biases in your own comments: you say "anti-capitalists" are swimming against a tide… but isn't it the "pro-capitalists" who are REALLY swimming against a tide? The tide of our manipulated perceptions and collective druthers is as nothing compared to the actual tide that's due to come in.
I'm not saying that VT doesn't have potentially better responses, otherwise I would not be here, BUT look at the quasi-religious nature of your statement above, which is predicated upon there being both "progress" and "success". But who says that there will be either? These are concepts that we think we know the meaning of but, as arctichomesteader points out in describing what we have done to our own home in the process, we don't understand at all.
Americans have a seriously blind spot in not being able to conceive of being defeated, and will—generally speaking—come up with the most convoluted of rationales to define themselves as "exceptional" victors, despite their lying eyes. Look at what has become a political battle over which party doesn't pat America on the back long enough or hard enough! Look at how a majority of us cheered when a mentally-infirm Reagan ("Morning in America") swept sweater-wearing, thermostat-lowering Carter out of office, and defiantly ripped Jimmy's solar panels off the White House. America "doesn't do" sacrifice, or doesn't do it well. Cheney said our lifestyle is "non-negotiable", though, and he's right for once in his life. We cannot negotiate with the laws of physics and thermodynamics.
While we are dithering, Germany has almost quarter, I think, of its electrical power coming from solar panels (not that those are a long-term solution). I really do think it has something to do with America's level of religious mania generally and historically, that salvation is Always Possible if you Only Believe hard enough or in the most orthodox way. This leaves people ripe for being misled down any number of garden paths, and makes them angry and cantankerous (but not unbelievers, never unbelievers) when things don't turn out as promised. Unfortunately, as you allude to, it is hard to get people to see clearly about their religions, and the religion of progress and success is certainly just as compelling as most religious beliefs on offer.
I don't want to pick on anyone in particular, but to understand how dire this situation is, one only has to consider how, in some states, the response to our current predicament is to eliminate the teaching of critical thinking in schools. Eliminate critical thinking, eliminate the problems that critical thinking reveal, no?
This is a battle thousands of years old (think of the Greek atomists writing about the Nature of Things), which may never be won, but all we can do is to live as coherently as we can with what we know to be true. Maybe the battle of Truth over Fiction can never be won, but we should at least think about designing a new Fiction that will work better than our current fiction.
Good discussion.
I wouldn't say your examples are representative of bias when taken in the context in which they are written. Anti-Capitalists are indeed swimming up stream against a tide of capitalists which represent the majority in this country. Again the statement was made referring to the US, When you take a statement made referring to the US and apply it to the planet, sure it could sound biased, it is also totally out of context. That being said I understand your point and it is valid referring to the greater "tide" of finite resources etc.
If you don't want to use the word "progress" to describe a move from an overly competitive consumption culture to a less invasive more resource concious approach, then what word would you like to use? And if such a paradigm shift isn't referred to as "success" from your perspective what would it be considered?
As for some of your other points about the education system etc. I think we can all agree that the US system is not heading in a good direction. In a matter of just 30-40 years concepts I learned in school aren't even taught. Science and math have become our weaknesses instead of having the foresight to recognize that science and math are the future and one of the keys to unlocking most of nature's mysteries.
As for Capitalism, while not a die hard defender of it, I believe in it more strongly than the other popular "isms" as applied in today's world. It is far from perfect, but no system is when you combine a solid theory with human behavior bad things can happen. That being said, I don't do religion and I don't worship the $. The $ pays my bills and allows me the freedom to do what I want within reason.
L&D, I know what you meant about the tide, but I couldn't resist using it as an example of how we all tend to have a bias in favor of what seems normative (in this case, capitalism) over alternatives.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Logs and Dogs
As for Capitalism, while not a die hard defender of it, I believe in it more strongly than the other popular "isms" as applied in today's world.
Understood, but—again, if you will bear with me and allow that this is not a personal attack and that I am just using your comments to draw out some conclusions—you acknowledge that it is a *belief*. Beliefs are either founded or unfounded, true or false. As you say you are not a "strong believer" then that says to me that you could be convinced not to "believe in" capitalism if it were shown to you to be a broken system unworthy of adherence. [It's hard for Americans to take that position because for a long time the majority of us benefited mightily by being on capitalism's "good side" in its earlier stages, though it has long been mathematically proven not to work as advertised overall.]
What's fascinating to me is to see how people maintain their "beliefs", even in systems which are not just passively broken but which are actively grinding them up and using them as fodder while cruelly holding out the possibility of salvation.
As for "human behavior", you imply that capitalism, perhaps like other -isms, is FAILED BY human behavior. But what is the basis for thinking this way about capitalism?? What leads you to call it a "solid theory"?
I do know that Republicans seem to think that conservativism (as they interpret it) cannot fail, but can only BE failed even from within their own tribe (eg., "if only so&so were more like Reagan!!"—ignoring what Reagan actually did), dragging themselves and everyone else off the cliff of their own ideology, to the point that Nixon is now to the left of Obama. Democrats are not immune in placing their "hope" in Obama, in the face of dismaying evidence on that front. Similarly, it appears that—in many people's opinion—capitalism cannot fail but can only BE FAILED. Hence the large number of people clamoring for "real capitalism", not having—apparently—recognized its predations sufficiently!
Someone with a positive message concerning these topics is Charles Eisenstein, and this short video is a thought-provoking introduction to his work (all of which is available for free on the Internet). I don't know that I agree with his conclusions, but he's very good at describing current economic system in a way that is simple and comprehensible.
He describes with exceptional poignance the way in which economic growth means that "you have to find something that was once nature and make it into a "good", or was once a gift relationship and make it into a "service". You have to find something that people once got for free, or did for themselves or for each other, and thentake it away and sell it back to them."
Much we give up voluntarily, but the more one thinks about it the more one will ascertain the violent nature of the taking away in most cases.
I think capitalism is swimming against the current of natural limits on resources. I don't think any of the "isms" is solid theory. Capitalism is unsustainable and in its purest forms (as 100+ years ago before Theodore Roosevelt's fight against the trusts and limited support of labor rights) is as tyrannical as any slavemaster to the masses. Socialism and communism seem to always devolve into tyranny by government and seem to be unworkable. I kind of like some of the ideas of distributism, which might be workable applied to localized economies, with attention paid to environmental issues.
It's interesting that in the 19th century, America was full of experiments to try to create a better society. Most failed, some produced some success (albeit in unintended ways: the Oneida community's contribution was the Newhouse trap the mountain men used and some still use, the Shakers contributed circular saw blades for lumber mills, improved woodstoves, simple but high quality furniture during a time of excess ornament, and countless agricultural improvements, Thoreau during his short stay at Walden Pond gave us the concepts of living simpler, closer to nature, and of civil disobedience which influenced various civil rights movements, placing individual moral actions above unjust laws) but few today even try. It seems there is no questioning the current consumerist religion of this country. It's funny that a mention was made of Carter; re-reading his so-called "malaise" speech, he said:
"In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning"
And he was absolutely correct. This society is so twisted in terms of its values, placing such heavy value on such insignificant things. This country needs to lose this consumerist idol it worships before we can even begin to address our environmental and economic problems.
I don't have any simple answer for how to transition to a better economic system, I think it will need to be taken one step at a time, in experimental ways. In this state, I think the state needs to put more effort into promoting farming, local food, use of wood products and energy, elimination of property taxes, disincentives to development of our farm and forest land (perhaps rip up the pavement in the Champlain Valley's threatened farm areas), and overall, encourage self-sufficiency on a state and individual level. I think there needs to be some education pointing out that money is just paper and ink really, less glorification of wealth, etc.
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