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Damon, your #5 would certainly turn capitalism on its head.
posted by
kingmi
on December 21, 2004 at 10:50 AM
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Oh, I...
...see!
You most certainly can.
Use away!
D
posted by
DamonLeigh
on December 21, 2004 at 8:32 AM
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Damon, I'm the one with the 40-word limit, not you, dude!
May I quote some of your arguments? These are much more reliable and well-thought out. Thanks! I wish I'd read these first.
posted by
kingmi
on December 17, 2004 at 12:40 PM
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I'm Enjoying...
...these!
1. America THINKS it's security relies on continuing globalisation. But because in the globalisation model, "poverty is an input on the supply side" (Michael Chossudovsky, economist), and poverty is a known root cause of terrorism, then clearly this is a case of incredible wrong-headedness.
2. It's not up to us to define ecological limits. Those limits are already defined, and very sharply. There's a finite temperature range within which we can survive as a species. There's a finite acidity level, above which the oceans will die. There's a finite amount of oil. And so on.
3. The first step to resetting the system (if we're even up to it!) is to lose the need for growth. Growth was arguably a good thing once, but it's outlived it's usefulness. Growth now only measures the rate at which we are approaching the multiple walls of ecological limitation.
4. Hand in hand with this, we need to forget about GNP, a measure of growth. According to David Korten, " GNP measures the rate at which the economically powerful are expropriating the resources of the economically weak in order to convert them into products that quickly become the garbage of the rich." Some people still think that this makes sense!
5. Finally, we need to seriously look at the Natural Capitalism model (Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins) whereby the tax burden on labour and income is removed completely, and is shifted entirely onto natural resources. The logic here is that once, labour was scarce, so it was taxed to limit it's over-use. Now, labour is, to all intents and purposes, infinite, but resources are finite. So if you want to pollute, you pay for 'using' that previously fresh air or water. If you want lumber, you pay tax, and heavily. same for oil, gas, water, land - everything. Then, maybe, we'll think twice before being as wasteful as the western world (and particularly America) has become in the last few decades.
(Did I blow my 40-word limit??)
D
posted by
DamonLeigh
on December 17, 2004 at 4:36 AM
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