At 03:51 PM 28/09/00 +0100, Mark Jones wrote, in reply to a comment I had
made that "We know that at current rate and in current system with current
players playing by current "rules", this is it. Then, what? What do you
propose to do? How? when? where? with whom? with what means? how directly?
Where do you start?"
1. "Any scheme you come up with has got to address the fundamental problem
or else it's just utopian, and therefore, part of the problem."
My comment: agreed, but how do you formulate the "fundamental problem"? We
are trying to assemble forces to do that adequately on an educational site
under cooperative construction, and i know for sure that it is not easy.
But what is the good of replying in such a snappy way with generalities?
(with all due respect, as this may not have been intended, but this is the
way it was received)
2. Then Mark continues with a lesson about the fact that "the system is not
self-regulating any more. It's completely out of control." He then takes
the example of oil and discusses the fluctuations of oil prices and the
action of OPEC and of the Oil corporations in relation to conflicts between
oil producing countries and variations in demand from the industrial world.
. . He then predicts a continuing sharp rise in oil prices up to $70/bbl
or even $100/bbl or $1000/bbl and the death of the 'weightless economy' .
My comment: fine until now. However, when he continues with a prediction
that we will then discover that "the 'weightless economy' was just a way of
closing down previously self-sufficient subsystems: families,
communities,extra-market forms of social solidarity.", what good will it be
to anyone at the time,as it will probably be too late to reconstruct? It
is true that for the most part, "we have forgotten *how* to survive except
as small cogs in the big machine." But then what? Do we have to wait until
the whole thing collapses, us included, to think of a possibility to do
something practical about it? I(n other words, how can we get out of the
market and short-term profit and power maximization dogmas before they have
destroyed the whole society and its ecological context?
I see nothing new in what Mark says and His vision is probably incomplete
(so is mine and everybody's anyway). My questions remain: "We know that at
current rate and in current system with current players playing by current
"rules", this is it. Then, what? What do you propose to do? How? when?
where? with whom? with what means? how directly? Where do you start?"
Best regards
Yves Bajard
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