of course the chinese are as usual showing us how contortionism can look normal, as they adopt the most extraordinary positions to keep their gnp strong and growing like wildfire.
a guaranteed living allowance sounds good, but no-one's going to go there.
so we need a new vision of the economy, as britguy tossed out...what shapes would it take?
as in wales cogently mentions, most folks are not going to be able to pop into a new training program every couple of years and create a coherent career out of that.
it's really hard to see into the crystal ball, but the murky image that keeps coming out for me is one of massive return to the land, post-hubbert's landing. perhaps because we have so many generations of agrarian life in our dna, this grouping in huge favelas and shanty towns that is draining the countryside all over the world will melt away when there is a real accounting with the true cost of energy, and the relative freebie of fossil fuels is no longer there to milk.
with the worldwide rollout of telecommunications, there will be info, fashion and the latest entertainment available to pass the time, which will be given back to us once we relearn the rhythms of the seasons, and unhook ourselves from the jagged, febrile din of the factory, gridlocked traffic and the slum.
how we get from here to there is the big question. most people have been so misled, for so long, they will not necessarily take easily to the adoption of new lifestyles, and adaptation to an economy that has spent its inheritance, and now must live within its means.
many will fear it, and do what they can to resist. others will look on the bright side, and look forward to living at the level of a portugese peasant, with a good dvd lending library, bingo, a yearly biodiesel bus trip to the seaside, village traditions to keep up, lots of local sports teams to root for, and a regional pop idol competition every once in a short while.
perhaps a reverence for pure education will return, and a joy in simple things that has been subsumed in the rat-race, greediest-yuppie-takes-all imbecility that passes for much of modern life.
i've always been a dreamer...gotta start somewhere! ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
a guaranteed living allowance sounds good, but no-one's going to go there. so we need a new vision of the economy, as britguy tossed out...what shapes would it take?
i think it's a great idea, and when i said 'no-one's going to go there', i meant that that is so different a reality that the one we have now, few have the imagination to even conceive it, and it's sounds so utopian on its face, no politician is going to risk touting it for votes.
kucinich isn't going a hundreth of the distance to that vision, and look how he fares.
an economy we at ET would willingly subscribe to, how do you envision it?
what image can we conceptualise as a step towards the blessed state it would be, to have a guaranteed living as a baseline from which to ascend?
i have some ideas, and they honour work that feels ennobling, be it helping make compost, getting the slurry out of the digester, learning to take care of animals, working on sustainable mechanical and electronic devices in clean, healthy environments. helping the aged, child care, teaching and learning making our own media etc. even chores commonly thought boring because of their low intellectual content become fun if shared, and stress levels are low.
fast forwarding to an even more benign ecorelationship than that, where solar and windpowered robots harvest our greenmanured soya fields and make milk and tofu for the masses, who loll around blissfully in between bouts of doing only and exactly what they please...sure, lol, all it takes is a little courage to dream, faith, and a million more years evolution. snarque
of course this syllabus will be considerably foreshortened if we don't take more preventative action yesterday, as thankfully more and more people are...
meanwhile, back at the coalmine...
maybe you should run for office migeru! ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
