Re: [pf] a sustainable economic system

At 20:33 9/7/2000 -0700, Jill Taylor Bussiere wrote:
>What we have not yet discussed explicitly in the choice between GoreorBush
>and Nader, is capitalism.
>We can not sustain existence on the planet with the capitalist system that
>we have been using - with its need for growth.  Nor can we continue with 
>the
>model of continued exploitation that world powers have been using for
>centuries.  Our frontiers are gone.  The wall is in our face, and there is
>writing on it. ... The consumerism that we all condemn is a direct result 
>of
>capitalism. ...
>We need a new model.  To vote for Gore or Bush is to vote for capitalism.
>To vote for Nader is to vote for a person who realizes that the earth has
>limits, and has been acting upon that realization. ... there
>sure is some relationship between ownership of land and capitalism.
>What other models of land could there be besides individual ownership?  The
>ones I could think of so far were government ownership, communal ownership,
>no ownership (there would be several forms of that as well....)  What 
>models
>are there for a sustainable economic system?
>
>Any ideas?
>
**  I have little to say; I'm mainly pointing out that Jill's started a
very worthwhile thread.

**  The only point I can add is that for most of human history,
sustainability has been the assumed goal of the whole society/civilization.
Individuals and cities have wanted and achieved growth in power, but the
assumption has been that the general shape of "the world" would be nearly
the same in a hundred years, bar some ups and downs in relationships.
**  A merchant or a farm owner would often want to become more prosperous,
but what would be handed on to the son/daughter would be in the same scale
(e.g. only 50-100% bigger) when one life tailed off and the next person
took over - sustainable. Not tens or hundreds of times bigger. 
**  There wasn't this assumption that not-increasing-profit-every-year was
shameful. You accepted ups and downs - sustainable.

**  Yes, we do need examples, models of a sustainable economic system, and
I'm sure they're there, because that's been the way-of-life for most of
human experience. This 100-year "blip" (so far; it'll take a long time to
tail off) is quite out=of-the ordinary, caused by greed grabbing hold of
science-derived huge power. Capitalism is a formulising of that. (creating
& using a formula, a recipe.)

David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.emucities.com.au/member/davd/
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