I would define the global economy in terms of both parisitism and symbiosis.
Colonialism is clearly parasitic, but when we pay a fair price for imports
the relationship is symbiotic. The relationships between urban dwellers and
their providers is symbiotic. To speak of virulent parasitism is misleading.
One interesting characteristic of human societies is that they can generate
value without contributing resources. Our purchase of oil from Saudi Arabia
is an exchange of money for a physical resource, but our payments to call
centres in the Phillipines or financial centres in Hong Kong are exchanges
of money for human-generated value. This is not common among other
organisms, but it occurs.For example, the birds that eat ticks off the hides
of pachyderms are in a sense parasites, but they provide a welcome service.
I think that this is an interesting discussion and should continue (I assume
that human ecology is a suitable topic for this list), but perhaps it is
time to stop trying to fit human societies into strict categories and time
to focus on what is actually going on. We can all agree that without food
imports there would not be enough food in the Darfur region to feed all the
people, so why waste time arguing whether the region is "overpopulated"? Ms.
Weis' second paragraph is quite correct, so why can't we address that
without calling people "parasites"?
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Judith Weis" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 8:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Overpopulation, was: Economic Growth
The Odums described cities (or "technoecosystems") as parasites on the
surrounding landscape. I suppose we can consider heavily
urbanized/industrialized countries as dense concentrations of parasites
that have feeding tentacles stretching all over the world.
But the analogy isn't entirely apt anymore. Almost all Americans are
parasitic, no matter how rural their living environment. They eat
bananas, use petroleum products, wear clothes made in China, etc. It's
hard to draw boundaries around the parasites anymore
However, urban residents have a smaller footprint than suburban and rural
ones. Having many people living in an apartment building is much more fuel
efficient than single family houses. The availablilty of mass transit
means that people do not drive cars as much. They can walk to lots of
places that others have to drive to - e.g food shopping, other shopping,
schools, etc. So they are less virulent parasites than suburbanites or
rural residents.
