Friday, March 21st, 2008 |
From a comment by Lon Sarver:
I think you made a flawed assumption in your prefatory paragraph, where you said, “Availability of resources is also based on that of an industrialized nation…”
Many of the factors we have identified as contributing to the erosion of sustainable communities are direct results of, or requirements for, a modern, industrialized economy. The economy of an industrialized nation requires centralized production and distribution, and also a mobile workforce who can move with the openings and closings of plants and stores.
Much of what we have discussed in terms of making real communities involves people rooted in one spot for long periods, and in moving the jobs and stores nearer to the people. All of this will sap the efficiency of the high-production, high-consumption industrial model we use today.
It is possible (and I believe it to be so) that the current levels of industrial production are antithetical to sustainable community and democracy.
Lon hit on a problem that I had missed. There is a possible logical inconsistency between depending on high industrial output at the same time as restructuring communities to work with a much smaller model of industry and economy.
I have actually agonized over this issue for quite some time… hence why it took me until now to really respond to this issue. The conclusion that I have come to is that in the short to mid term the logical inconsistency is very real; however, it may be possible to resolve in the long term.
To deal with this problem in a direct way, the focus would need to shift from communities based on long bonds to more loosely related organizations that could deal with high turnover and change. What came to my mind would be an evolution of professional societies.
If professional societies were given much more of a social function, large numbers of people with similar goals could be easily brought closer together. However, unlike unions these would not focus on employment issues and only work at putting people of similar background (education & employment) in contact very quickly. This would also encourage a much higher rate of information exchange which I proposed as a goal for individual development.
Societies would hopefully be close contact with related industry societies. It would also give people who are moving to a new city a clear way to integrate in their new location.
This is one way to deal with the highly mobile work force we have created. Although it has a very distinct set of limitations. These organization would have to become very numerous in large urban areas before being effective. This model would also not work very well for smaller communities where a very different system (closer to my original idea) would be needed.
This is just part one of addressing some of problems that have become apparent, so to help with refining the ideas here are two questions:
What are other shortfalls of this idea?
What are the steps that could be taken past this to work toward a community model that less resembles union politics and helps bring disparate people together?
Posted in Changing Society, Community Development | No Comments »
Monday, February 18th, 2008 |
This is one of 3 articles to help introduce and explain the basic ideas and tenets of Sustainable Democracy. The Pillars follow a progression from smallest to largest. From the individual, to the community, to the society. This article will focus on the role of society and some very basic ideas about how small scale models might be used in society. Availability of resources is also based on that of an industrialized nation, the lack or absence of basic needs in developing or third world nations is also an important topic which will be considered.
Both the individual and the community have been considered. The individual can be adapted to work in a more creative and inventive role to push innovation rather than simply production. The community should be reinvigorated, and people and their social networks must be brought back together in their local surroundings to lift the spirit of the individual.
In the long run the society should be much like the community model on the macro scale. Rather than connecting individuals the society should work to integrate communities and develop the networks and support structures to integrate these local communities. This is especially important considering the incredible infrastructure for industry, communications, and transportation that must be supported. In many ways, a number of modern societies are doing quite well at what they are meant to accomplish.
As I see it, the actual changes to society as a whole would be small and made over longer periods of time. Also little radical change would be required in many democratic society simply because, as people and communities change, the people representing them in government also change to cater more closely to those constituents. The biggest change, though, would be moving away from profit and power based models to more cooperative systems. Here is where community model play a bigger role.
While there are a growing number of nations that could easily manage the changes required to reinvent sustainable democratic systems, many more cannot serve even the basic needs of their population. Much in the same way local communities help each other, much broader support networks must be developed. These networks must be aimed at pushing sustainable development rather than merely creating rapid industrial growth. The support of massive industrialization in other countries has already met with many disastrous results, and these could easily have been predicted.
Looking at our own metro areas, the problem of rapid development for profit without regard to community building can be seen. The areas of urban blight did not develop because people hate living in good places, they developed because we wrecked the structures that allowed them to care and foster those social networks. It is by this idea that different types of aid need to be given. Along with food and necessities a greater focus needs to be made on exporting education and developing technologies. We still tend to view Third World Nations as places that are full of ignorant, backward people who cannot learn new things beyond the workings of a sweatshop. This is patently false. Only by believing in the great ability of all individuals to learn and want to become better will we realize that high order systems can be directly moved into developing areas. It will take more resources to teach and adapt these industries or services to their specific needs, but extra support for much greater ling term development should always be preferable to short tern gain with easily predictable long-term loss.
What do you think of these ideas? What problems or stumbling points are apparent?
Let me know and any ideas will be discussed in latter articles!
Posted in Changing Society, sustainable democracy | 2 Comments »
