Confronting the Context: Permaculture and Capitalism

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by matto, Sep 12, 2013.

  1. matto

    matto Junior Member

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    From Rafter Sass-Fergusson



    Continued at https://liberationecology.org/2013/...text-permaculture-capitalism/?fb_source=pubv1
     
  2. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    matto,

    you posted much, bottom line for me what is said about perma, is by aligning to a greedy ego driven political party hey appease their own same ethic's, i'm still saying until or unless perma becomes really really relevant at grass roots level, not just a sprinkle here and ther for saving face, then any answers perma has are theory like the science's.

    what we get here is splash in the pan stuff and as soon as someone wants to explore further and maybe develop a starting point, you can be viewed as anti-social in the group.

    we need to start with open minds, wide vision and stop judging others that is discrimination of the worst kind.

    divided we surely fall.

    len
     
  3. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Capitalism is to Permaculture as Yin is to Yang.
     
  4. Unmutual

    Unmutual Junior Member

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    It's rather easy from my perspective, which is not a normal perspective. I'm going to continue to work until reaching retirement age. Before I retire I'm going to buy acreage(40-ish), do the earthworks, hopefully build at least one structure for living in plus the infrastructure for a small settlement(3-5 homes), build out zones 1-3, and let zones 4-5 grow(which I hope to not touch outside of stick fuel and chop-n-drop from N-fixing trees). Then retire with about $4,000 per month income and sell my house in the suburbs. By that time, the land should be fully hydrated or coming close to it, from the earthworks. The tree systems planted on the swale mounds will be established and everything should be looking good and all I have to do is move in the livestock after spending several years mulling over what breeds I'll go with.

    I won't need to make a living off the land. All I have to do is build it up for future generations of my family. While that probably isn't the answer they're(or we're) looking for, it is an answer. We're not doing permaculture for our own good, but for the generations yet to come. We're trying to make a Perma(nent) Culture after all. This is not something you can pop in the microwave for 2.5 minutes and expect a good meal.

    Permaculture can not reconcile with capitalism, so why bother trying? A new economic model needs to be made for permaculture to work, something that is not really discussed. I'm happy to see more people starting these conversations about permaculture and economics though. It is something that needs to be addressed, just like political systems. Our current economic and political systems(capitalism and representative democracy) are intertwined and are pretty much useless, but we have very little else to fall back on. And yes, I will point people back to this thread for a political model because it does seem to have a good fit within permaculture. Outside of the basic guidelines of altruism, being nice to people, not destroying the environment and making lots of compost/providing food for free to needy people, along with doing everything locally, I don't see an alternative economy. There are plenty of alternative currency systems and they do seem to work. So why not do the same thing that brought permaculture to our midst and backtrack all the alternative economic models pre-capitalism(a fair enough question is why don't I do it myself...and I think I will once things settle down in my little world..because I happen to thing this is important)? We don't need a completely new economic paradigm, just something that we know works on the scale that we want it to work and can easily 'tap into' other local economies. Everyone talks about bartering, but nobody talks about any of the details. It can't be as simple as working out a trade for anything you want to 'purchase'. Surely some merchants had some form of codified 'currency' as in a new shirt for 1 goat, 6 chickens, or a loaf of bread every week for 12 weeks.

    Economics confuses the hell out of me at the best of times...Does anyone know of any good books on economics that don't involve capitalism?
     
  5. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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  6. kimbo.parker

    kimbo.parker Junior Member

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    wow, thank you for the heads up marko!
    ordered
    ( mine godt $44 inc $6.50 postage )
    just so i can expand my dream of post industrial society, and a socially redundant economic rationale ,,,,,,but to do this i have to have enough industrialisation and economic rationale to have the quid and processes to facilitate the transaction

    :)
    i want to lose myself in a good book - the way i did with Terry Pratchets "Long world",,,,nothing beats this for maximising the utility of one potato.
     
  7. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    I think you will like this little book, Kimbo. Mind you, at only 180-odd pages, it will not keep you occupied for any great length of time (I think I read my copy over the course of about 6-hours). But having said that, it's a little ripper. Sam (the author, and a person I'm currently working with) has done a mighty fine job!
     
  8. Unmutual

    Unmutual Junior Member

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  9. Xio

    Xio Junior Member

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    Greed! Greed and stupidity!

    IMO not quite correct. Fear & greed rule the masses & it ain't about to change.
    Again IMO, permaculture is not going to save the world or feed the masses. I moved to a rural block some months ago now, after a time living in the city & before that a farmer & grazier. I've had permaculture, bio-dynamic & other non main stream leanings for quite awhile & I talk to & listen to a lot of people & have done for many years. It's my experience that very few people have even heard of the word 'permaculture'.
    I do believe that we are slowly strangling planet earth but whenever that transpires, I'll be long gone & so will everyone else on this forum.
    The green philosophy seems to me destructive as the views are usually impractical in the world as we have it. No coal industry, no mining, no new dams, screw corporations etc it seems to me that we go back to horse & cart days. Not such a bad thing. Life again IMO was better when it was slower. Catching god help me a steam train to the central coast of nsw then being picked up in a horse & sulky to visit rellies for a school holiday, hand milking cows, no electricity, no sewerage systems, a self sufficient lifestyle in the main, all hard work but still good times.
     
  10. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

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    So unsustainable greed is your preferred choice and bugger the consequences.
    Sounds like stupidity, greed and fear to me.
     
  11. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    well xio,

    is right greed persists due to overall stupidity within the ranks, the masses, people so educated put their heads in this bucket or that bucket, and believe all will one day see in those buckets and simply change. but it isn't simple ask mark. permaculture may or may not be proven to be the best concept of ideas out, but unless and until it is broadly known through the masses it will achieve almost naught as it has done now for the past 3 decades, whilst the rot continues unabated. saw another couple of jinka's of gum trees heading to mills through the past days, so yes the stupidity continues, oh as well as jinka's loaded with those weed pine logs heading for CCA treatment and the chipper at the port of brisbane.

    i've tried to pass this info' on here but by and large i hardly raises a chuckle, so no good blaming others, and covering them in security blankets of stupidity, fear and greed. stop blaming us the little people, or you will fall into the indoctrinated traps of those nameless faceless greedy manipulators. keep the behind the scenes picture of lots of tree roots and tops piled up after logs go to market, to be burnt at a later date. about time we had some unity and targeted the real enemies of our planet. one way would be to encourage people not to build these timber mcmansions maybe. just had another built behind us for a retiring couple, a because they can(the standard of our Aussie community - do it because we can) mind you it is over capitalised for the area, might take 50+ years to gain a break even.

    so for me about time others picked on the right people, in this cause. no one here supports unsustainable greed well not so directly.

    len
     
  12. Xio

    Xio Junior Member

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    Your response Grasshopper assumes too much.
    If for instance there is no coal do we run with wind, hydro or nuclear means of generating power?
    Coal seam gas exploration is much too close to my property & I have real problems about the health & safety issues. What's more this work is being done by offshore companies.
    I've spent time near wind turbines & the low frequency hum certainly upsets me & I'm of the opinion there are health issues for those living near them.
    How long is it since governments have built dams in Australia. Quite a while in NSW, not so long ago in Qld but as the popular grows where does the water come from if not from storage systems. I do believe the future looks grim simply because the pollies prostitute themselves at the altars of capitalism. I look forward to the apocalypse.
     
  13. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    I have no clue where you are from Xio, but some countries are smart enough to remove hydro-dams such as in my own backyard... the Klamath river dams & many others.

    You skipped solar, both passive & active systems, which is FREE to all. The infrastructure might not be, but the source of the power is. You should look into how much power Germany is already generating using solar. You also skipped over wave energy which is in use in many countries, and since most humans live near the ocean, this is not that bad of an option either.

    Some turbines MIGHT cause an infrasound problem, but the only country to actually be doing any kind of research on this subject has not released its findings one way or another.



    With that said, the problem is wasting energy here debating amongst ourselves when the world's top 5% has everyone's mixed nuts in a sling.
     
  14. Rick Larson

    Rick Larson Junior Member

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    I sometimes refer to myself as a Libertarian that has aquired an Environmental Position.

    To parse the various forms of capitalism would take a long study in an of itself. Here in the USA, the economic system has morphed away from free-market capitalism (I would argue this country is 200 years past free-market capitalism) into a form of capitalism that uses the law to create markets, protect business models, and shift revenue to those business associations with the highest lobbying efforts.

    If it was left to the free market, these very large corporations could not compete. They need the law to exist. Capital only continues to flow towards them as their business model is protected by government. For instance, without the government carrying the insurance on nuclear power plants, none of them would have been built as the risk to capital is too high if one blew up. Much of the ongoing oil drilling would not exist if it were not for the tax credits available to offset the risk of drilling a dry hole. The mega farms and those manufacturers of the sui-cides would not exist if not for subsidy that carries the whole works though rough climate years. Land prices would not have risen to these lofty levels without the government interference through tax deductions, cheap and easy loans, zoning, and collecting higher taxes on higher prices. This is not the free market at work. The free market can not be blamed for the current dilemma. Crony capitalism, on the other hand, is at fault.

    Then, if the courts allowed me, and any other individual, to sue the local coal-fired power plant for wrecking my lungs, they wouldn't exist either.

    If a free market were allowed to work, there would be less large corporations, less need for large financial institutions, less need for big government to help the large corporations stay in business. Less raping of the planet to fuel the system that only benefits some and makes a few filthy rich. If these people only knew there is only one planet! perhapstheydo

    To reduce this to simple terms: If there was a price set for a carrot lower than the cost to produce the carrot, no one would plant carrots. Set a price too high, and everyone would grow them but not many could afford them. In a free market, the price would fluctuate to accomodate good harvests or bad.

    In my lowly view, other than isolated circumstances, perhaps in thriving third world villages, is there a free market for goods, services, and ideas. If there were, small Permaculture food production would have won on a large scale long ago. In this economic/political system, the way to economic power is through lobbying the law makers. Otherwise we wait until the system bankrupts - and I don't think this is long to wait.
     

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