Tom says:
>Others seem to
>casually accept the idea that civilization � under ANY system � will
>continue to muddle along.
I assume that. We won't return to hunter-gathering any time soon IMO.
And my answer to the rest of his post will be more general. For a change, I will
rant freely and not answer dozens of specific points:
As to avoiding the crash, I guess that only a magical technological advance
can get us out of this if it is as severe as people like Hanson say (I'm not
competent enough to say if they are wrong or right, but there's not much to
loose in assuming they are and acting now). No socialism or reform of
capitalism or third way will solve the problem. This crash is not the end of
everything we know, though. There will be a "landing" (in terms of population,
energy consumption, etc.). When I talked about this a while ago on this list,
Mark sarcastically talked about there beign no landing when you fall into an
abyss or something of the sort. I think that this is empty rhetoric. No
catastrophic information I've seen until now justifies this endless abyss
concept. The point of changing society before the crash is to have a less hard
"landing". My guess is that if we continue like that with the current brand of blind
ultra-capitalism we'll end up like other naturally mindless societies in the same
situations (the deer island of Hanson, or the Easter island).
I think we shouldn't focus on labels like free-market capitalism, state-
capitalism, state-socialism, or libertarian socialism (Tom asked about
capitalism and socialism but I think that these words have little meaning
shared among us on their own). What I think we should focus on is crucial
issues. Which are IMO:
1) reform of agriculture (incl. distribution system, culinary habits, etc.) towards
something more local and sustainable
2) diminishing the inktake of fossil fuels, erosion, and other consumption of
limited ressources
3) diminshing population (incl. cultural progress on fertility, euthanasia,
abortion, etc.)
I have sorted the issues not by order of importance (the issues are linked
anyway) but by order of political practicability. I am very pessimist on the issue
3 despite the recent advances in sexual freedom and I'm somewhat optimistic
on issue 1 (I'm obviously talking of the political climate around here, not in
other places of the world even if I'm sure that they are similarities). There's
been some outrage on issues like the mad cow disease, GE, and stuff. There
is a widespread belief that something is wrong. There is some appeal of the
old ways of doing things in that aera that even marketers have recognized a
while ago. There is some progress of peasant figures on the political scenes.
Of course, progress on these issues implies attacks on some capitalist
institutions like the WTO and practices as well as the introduction of different
institutions.
As to systems of governance (there has been some talk about this), I am
currently not very much in favor of genuine electoral democracy, anarchisms,
etc. I think that something more dictatorial is needed. I am not in favour of
totalitarianism either so I think that the system should rely more on consensus
and regional autonomy than on secret police and stuff because this is
ultimately counter-productive as that armed/bureaucratic body turns into a
decadent power behind the scene. What I mean by dictatorial is not based on
petty political trafficking. The ones in charge should not be accountable
before some cliques and sufficently rich/powerful not to be interested in
corruption and the like. You could imagine something democratic like that if
elections were replaced by random selection of people. This is obviously
only my little opinion and no condtion for progress on the issues I've
mentioned.
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