Platt and Adrie, I believe in community, which you might think puts me on the opposite side of you on this debate, but I'm actually opposed to national social programs of control. The only appropriate socialism is local - people of the same discrete biome taking care of themselves and their families and their neighbors. Why should people all across America pay taxes so Californians can have the highest welfare benefits in the country? The inherent unfairness of liberalism actually promotes local individual autonomy.
What happens when some disaster strikes and the neighbors all have to pitch in together? Warm feelings of connection and community arise and they last a long time. Then the FEMA trucks arrive and people stop looking at their neighbors as helpers in the face of adversity, and start looking at them as competitors standing in line to get the goodies from the mommy-state. Sibling rivalry replaces communal cooperation. My one criticism of you Platt is that you rail against liberalism and praise individualism, but individualism IS a creation of liberalism. What we need is a back-to-the-land neofeudalism, where the regulations are lifted that keep landowners from creating wealth with the wise management of their property. As Bruce Mollison and Masanobu Fukuoka have discovered, the main limit on productivity is people. The land has much more carrying capacity and wealth-producing potential than we realize. With the arrival of the ubiquitous information network, encouraging experimentation and spread of good practice, we could have a nation of proud and independent communities again. Its high time for the dot communism revolution to take hold. When the Giant dies, butterflies arise. John the micro-utopian dreamer Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
