Wednesday, August 13, 2008
"Deep Economy" by Bill McKibben
For the most of human history, the two birds, ' More ' and ' Better ' , were roosted on the same branch. You could toss one stone and hope, to hit them both !
That's why, the centuries since Adam Smith have been devoted to the dogged pursuit of maximum economic production.
The idea that individuals, pursuing their individual interestes in a market society, make one another richer and the idea that increasing efficiency, usualy by increasing scale, is the key to increasing wealth has indisputably produced ' More ' .
But the distinguishing feature of our moment is this : ' Better ' has flown a few trees over, to make her nest !
Growth is no longer making most people wealthier, but instead, generating inequality and insecurity. And Growth is buming against physical limits. New search from many quarters has started to show that, even when growth does make us wealthier, the greater wealth no longer makes us happier !
Given all that we now know about topics ranging from the molecular structure of carbon dioxide to the psychology of human satisfaction, we need to move, decisively to rebuild our Local Economies !!
Shifting our focus will not mean abandoning Adam Smith or doing away with the markets. Markets, obviously, work . Building a local econonoy will mean, however, ceasing to worship markets as infallible - and consciously setting limits of their scope !
"Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007)" ISBN 0-8050-7626-3 -- by Bill McKibben.
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Bill McKibben is an American environmentalist and writer who frequently writes about global warming, alternative energy, and the need for more localized economies.
Beginning in the summer of 2006, he led the organization of the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history. McKibben is active in the Methodist Church, and his writing sometimes has a spiritual bent. Al Gore wrote in 2007 that "when I was serving in the Senate, Bill McKibben’s descriptions of the planetary impacts... made such an impression on me that it led, among other things, to my receiving the honorific title ‘Ozone Man’ from the first president Bush.”
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The Age of Missing Information
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...Human beings--any one of us, and our species as a whole--are not all-important, not at the center of the world. That is the one essential piece of information, the one great secret, offered by any encounter with the woods or the mountains or the ocean or any wilderness or chunk of nature or patch of night sky. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 228
...We believe that we live in the 'age of information,' that there has been an information 'explosion,' an information 'revolution.' . We also live at a moment of deep ignorance, when vital knowledge that humans have always possessed about who we are and where we live seems beyond our reach. An unenlightenment. An age of missing information. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 9
...It worries me because it alters perception. TV, and the culture it anchors, and drowns out the subtle and vital information contact with the real world once provided. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 22
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Enough
...They'll lead us bit by bit toward the revolutionary idea that we've grown about as powerful as it's wise to grow; that the rush of technological innovation that's marked the last five hundred years can finally slow, and spread out to water the whole delta of human possibility. But those decisions will only emerge if people understand the time for what it is: the moment when we stand precariously on the sharp ridge between the human past and the posthuman future, the moment when meaning might evaporate in a tangle of genes or chips.
—Enough, p.198
These new technologies are not yet inevitable. But if they blossom fully into being, freedom may irrevocably perish. This is a fight not only for the meaning of our individual lives, but for the meaning of our life together.
—Enough, p.199
Right now, plenty of people feel the peacefulness of their lives degraded by sprawl, or worry about the way consumerism has eroded the quality of our communities. For them, the idea of enough is not completely alien or distasteful, though it remains difficult to embrace. We've been told that it's impossible – that some force like evolution drives us on to More and Faster and Bigger. 'You can't stop progress.' But that's not true. We could choose to mature. That could be the new trick we share with each other, a trick as revolutionary as fire. Or even the computer.
—Enough, p.220
That's why, the centuries since Adam Smith have been devoted to the dogged pursuit of maximum economic production.
The idea that individuals, pursuing their individual interestes in a market society, make one another richer and the idea that increasing efficiency, usualy by increasing scale, is the key to increasing wealth has indisputably produced ' More ' .
But the distinguishing feature of our moment is this : ' Better ' has flown a few trees over, to make her nest !
Growth is no longer making most people wealthier, but instead, generating inequality and insecurity. And Growth is buming against physical limits. New search from many quarters has started to show that, even when growth does make us wealthier, the greater wealth no longer makes us happier !
Given all that we now know about topics ranging from the molecular structure of carbon dioxide to the psychology of human satisfaction, we need to move, decisively to rebuild our Local Economies !!
Shifting our focus will not mean abandoning Adam Smith or doing away with the markets. Markets, obviously, work . Building a local econonoy will mean, however, ceasing to worship markets as infallible - and consciously setting limits of their scope !
"Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007)" ISBN 0-8050-7626-3 -- by Bill McKibben.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill McKibben is an American environmentalist and writer who frequently writes about global warming, alternative energy, and the need for more localized economies.
Beginning in the summer of 2006, he led the organization of the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history. McKibben is active in the Methodist Church, and his writing sometimes has a spiritual bent. Al Gore wrote in 2007 that "when I was serving in the Senate, Bill McKibben’s descriptions of the planetary impacts... made such an impression on me that it led, among other things, to my receiving the honorific title ‘Ozone Man’ from the first president Bush.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Age of Missing Information
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...Human beings--any one of us, and our species as a whole--are not all-important, not at the center of the world. That is the one essential piece of information, the one great secret, offered by any encounter with the woods or the mountains or the ocean or any wilderness or chunk of nature or patch of night sky. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 228
...We believe that we live in the 'age of information,' that there has been an information 'explosion,' an information 'revolution.' . We also live at a moment of deep ignorance, when vital knowledge that humans have always possessed about who we are and where we live seems beyond our reach. An unenlightenment. An age of missing information. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 9
...It worries me because it alters perception. TV, and the culture it anchors, and drowns out the subtle and vital information contact with the real world once provided. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 22
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enough
...They'll lead us bit by bit toward the revolutionary idea that we've grown about as powerful as it's wise to grow; that the rush of technological innovation that's marked the last five hundred years can finally slow, and spread out to water the whole delta of human possibility. But those decisions will only emerge if people understand the time for what it is: the moment when we stand precariously on the sharp ridge between the human past and the posthuman future, the moment when meaning might evaporate in a tangle of genes or chips.
—Enough, p.198
These new technologies are not yet inevitable. But if they blossom fully into being, freedom may irrevocably perish. This is a fight not only for the meaning of our individual lives, but for the meaning of our life together.
—Enough, p.199
Right now, plenty of people feel the peacefulness of their lives degraded by sprawl, or worry about the way consumerism has eroded the quality of our communities. For them, the idea of enough is not completely alien or distasteful, though it remains difficult to embrace. We've been told that it's impossible – that some force like evolution drives us on to More and Faster and Bigger. 'You can't stop progress.' But that's not true. We could choose to mature. That could be the new trick we share with each other, a trick as revolutionary as fire. Or even the computer.
—Enough, p.220
