Thomas:
>Show me the first city without a countryside?
I'm not saying that there was not a countryside before there were cities.
But in the original countryside everyone produced only for themselves, or
for their local group, by a combination of own-use agriculture and hunting
and gathering. Such trade as took place was very limited and occurred on a
barter basis. The growth of cities precipitated a level of demand which
agricultural production for mainly domestic use could not meet. Agriculture
therefore reorganized to produce surpluses exportable to the cities, much
like market gardens of today. Any production that is not strictly for
own-use requires a market, and as such production grows, markets must become
larger and more complicated in their functions. A great deal of capital is
required to both create markets and provide the productive base which feeds
into those markets. The development of such capital is of course something
that happens jointly between the producer and the marketer, but if markets
did not exist there would be no possibility of selling surplus produce and
of generating the capital. Cities grew because they provided markets for
the countryside, and provided a means by which the produce of the
countryside could move nationally and internationally. Or, to put it
another way, it was the growth of cities and an entrepreneurial/capitalist
class that enabled the countryside to develop and flourish. It is in this
sense that Jane Jacobs has proposed that cities led the development of the
countryside.
It is not strictly true that the city and the countryside have always
followed a dissimilar calendar. In medieval Europe, for example, trade
centered in the regional fairs periodically held at London and Stourbridge
in England, at Paris, Lyons, Reims, and the Champagne in France, at Lille,
Ypres, Douai, and Bruges in Flanders, at Cologne, Frankfort, Leipzig, and
Lübeck in Germany, at Geneva in Switzerland, at Novgorod in Russia. To˙
the
extent that these fairs had to accommodate the not-inconsiderable products
of the country, they would have to be timed to meet the schedules of rural
production. The major difference between those times and now is that goods
do not have to be sold right away; they can be stored. As well, we no
longer need to rely on local production; during the winter agricultural
produce can be imported from regions able to produce year round.
Whereas medieval cities were closely related to their countrysides, many
cities are now virtually independent of their surrounding rural areas.
Cities such as London, New York, Sao Paulo, and Tokyo still perform the very
important function of accommodating markets, but these are vast
international markets, not local ones. They rely on the production of local
foodstuffs to some degree, but would certainly survive if such production
was absent.
>Money was invented as a convenience - a medium of exchange so that the
>rural
>worker did not have to drag his pig to the shoemaker when he wanted a pair
>of shoes. In it's original form, the idea was not the accumulation of
>capital through profit, it was to facilitate an exchange of goods and
>services. The concept has been subverted to the accumulation of capital
>through profit - that little extra slice that accumulates power to the
>holder of it.
If I remember my economics, profit is not a reward to capital, but to
enterprise. It is the reward going to the entrepreneur, the person who is
successful in putting capital, labor and land together to some productive
purpose. Capital accrues interest, which is the price which must be paid to
the owner of the capital because, while it is in production, he cannot use
it for any other purpose. Marx did not buy this. He saw capital as
something like "congealed labor effort" which rightly belonged to the
working class, but which was stolen from it by the capitalist. And, of
course, medieval theologians, saw capital as something essentially devilish
because owners of capital could charge "usury". Why am I saying this? It
is because I believe that we are forever looking for scapegoats, someone to
blame when the world is not as we think it should be. Every age has done
this. Throughout history we have difficulty in accepting that we live in a
very economically complex world in which things can sometimes move for us,
as they did for western Canadian farmers of the 1950s, and can sometimes
move against us, as they did for the farmers in more recent times. Instead
of finding someone or something to label with blame, we should be trying
much harder than we often do to find out what is really going on - that is,
to understand the situation.
The most basic characteristic of the world we now live in is change, and,
very often, change that is rapid, unpredictable and uncontrollable. To me
it seems a little fruitless to look for people to blame for this change. In
one way or another, we are all to blame. The paramount requirement, it
seems to me, is to learn how to live with change, how to respond to it and
protect those who are most vulnerable to it, because you can bet that change
will be with us for a very long time.
You say I hit your button when is suggested that local suppliers may be
threatened when more efficient and cheaper sources and methods of supply can
be found.
>Well Ed, you've hit my button with this reason. In the capitalistic system
>where cost in monetary terms becomes the overriding value or criteria to
>make decisions, rather than sustainability, durability, humanistic
>concerns, history or any other criteria is then put further down the list
>so that the determinant of cost justifies major human atrocities to
>workers, the environment, animals, topspoil, water sanctity or a hundred
>other abuses. These externalities are exempt from the idea of cost which
>is a very narrow and focused criteria. The massive use of petroleum
>products to move goods from hither and yon which may very well be creating
>the global warming or cooling (makes no difference, both are horror story
>disasters) is rationalized under the rubric of lower cost to produce lower
>prices. As the discussion of Tom Walkers on this thread has indicated,
>labour is also a cost and people and communities are sacrificed by an
>accountants pen.
I do not recall having ever said that externalities should not be
internalized in the price system. I know very well that many governments do
not require them to be. However, even if by some universally applicable law
they were all internalized, it would still be true that many commodities
would be much cheaper if purchased abroad than if produced at home.
>Now as to that lovely neo-con word "efficiency". A few observations.
>Humans are inefficient - we are designed that way. We are not robots
>programmed to do specialized tasks against the rule of the clock. We are
>enjoyers of life, creators of ideas, playful imaginators of games and arts,
>lovers of beauty, of sex, of friends, of family, of treasured goods,
>raisers of children and part of the divine mystery of existence. We are
>craftsmen with interests, how to bake a better cake or carve a flute or
>write poetry. Efficiency is a machine or system term, not a human term.
>Why should we give up our birthrights to a greedy acquisitive system that
>only wants to reward the best. All humans are not the best except at being
>themselves. How did we allow ourselves to be seduced by an employer who
>only wants to hire that unique individual, out of many who have needs, for
>his personal profit? Why do we put up with the rejection of ourselves by
>someone who wants to exploit us?
To this, I would simply say "yes to all of these things". We are lovers of
beauty, etc. We are also engineers and producers. We are part reptilian and
part divine. So be it.
>I appreciate your need for sound sleep but I must bring a few other points
>into this discussion. When you and I were young men, Canada probably had a
>population of around 18 million - it is now around 30 million. Your
>argument that fuel efficiency has increased is true, but we probably have
>more than double the usage ... etc.
What would you do, have them freeze in the dark?
>As to electric power, there have been several postings regarding the fact
>that no new nuclear or major hydro electric projects are currently
>happening or being built. In fact it is even worse, as most nuclear
>facilities are in the last half of their useful life and some of them will
>be going off stream in a few years - in Ontario alone, we will be losing 7
>shortly. Most massive power projects were needed to fuel an industrial age
>capitalistic system. A dispersed population doesn't need a nuclear plant,
>they may just need a windmill or a solar panel.
Three Gorges is currently under construction in China. When I was in Brazil
I saw the recently completed Itiapu Dam across the Parana River. It is an
enormous structure supplying about 75% of the power needs of Paraguay and
25% of the needs of Brazil. It is said to be the world's largest dam
currently, but Three Gorges will be larger when completed. I might note
that the latter is not being developed by a capitalist country.
>I think you are wrong here. [Energy prices] will only have to rise a small
amount
>because energy is in everything so it is compounded throughout the whole
>production and distribution system. If the cost of a barrel of oil goes
>from $20 to $30, I think it would create a tremendous impedus to local
>production, especially when the gas tank is getting more empty and everyone
>can foresee that in a few years it will be $40 then $50 then $100, etc.
Are you really saying that cities the size of Sao Paulo (20 million) could
produce their own energy? Or would you march those 20 million people back
into the countryside? Your faith in local production reminds me a little of
what Pol Pot did in Cambodia. He also believed that everybody should live
locally and be self-sufficient - so strongly in fact that he marched people
out of Phnom Pen and onto the killing fields. I'm sure that this is not
what you intend, but how on earth would you "localize" a place as large as
Sao Paulo or the even larger Mexico City? People have migrated to these
cities - and to many others all over the world - because rural life had
become unsustainable. I know that you are talking about some kind of
renewed or different sustainability, but the paramount question is still one
of how you would do it.
Anyhow, you've worn me out. I think our views are irreconcilable. I'm not
an idealist. I very much believe in the world that is. It's all we've got,
and it's what we have to work with. When I think of fragmenting the world
into local economies I shudder not only because I don't think they make
economic sense, but because I find them politically frightening. I would
much rather take my chances with the global economy than with local tyrants
(even well-meaning ones) standing over me and telling me how I must live to
be sustainable.
Best regards,
Ed Weick
