[lbo-talk] socially irresponsible investment

tully tully at bellsouth.net
Sat Apr 16 15:32:12 PDT 2005


On Saturday 16 April 2005 10:05 am, John Adams wrote:
>Yes--there are tiny communities in scattered locations representing
> a fraction of a percent of the people who tried this. They are
> little blemishes on an otherwise unbroken record of heartbreak,
> misery, and human waste from the mass delusions of the
> back-to-the-land movement.

I can only speak for myself, but I sure didn't experience heartbreak or misery from my experience, quite the contrary. Personally I had a blast in community before I was married and at homesteading during marriage. Got a great deal of hands-on experience and knowledge in gardening, raising animals, hunting, foraging, butchering, food preparation/preservation, clothes making, building, working in diverse community, etc. that will hold me in good stead no matter how bad things get in this country. Loved feeling that close and connected to the sources of our sustenance, and the security and freedom of knowing we can live without the system if necessary. Looking forward to getting back to some form of it, putting what I learned to use again, only this time as part of a larger community.


> Typical hippie narcissistic stupidity of the anti-humane sort.

Laughter is the only response I can make to the accusation of narcissism in hippies, but I must say that use of the term "anti-humane" is a new one. Please explain how hippies were/are anti-humane.


>I have some thoughts on this, beginning with: What do you do with
>people for whom four walls are four too many?

Congratulate them for having the lightest footprint on the planet?

On Saturday 16 April 2005 10:24 am, Doug Henwood wrote:
>But now we know it just isn't enough. You're never going to get more
>than a handful of people who want to live Twin Oaks-style - and Twin
>Oaks itself survives by selling hammocks, cashew butter, and web
>design to the outside world. It's a way of carving out your own
> niche while leaving the balance unchanged.

Ah, but it has changed the balance, albeit in a small way. Those 100 people at Twin Oaks are not taking jobs from local employers, and that means either 100 jobs are available for others to take or that 100 less people are on unemployment, welfare, or penniless. It also means that products are available on the market that were locally made, so less shipping would be involved for those same products if they were purchased elsewhere. It means socially responsible purchasing for the people who use their products and less equivalent purchased from socially irresponsible sources. It means contribution to the tax base to benefit others and unfortunately to support war. It means additional markets for vendors to Twin Oaks. You simply can't say it has no impact or it leaves the balance unchanged. And if others did their small part, maybe we'd see more and more impact. This small "votes" add up.

But you can be assured that nothing about that balance with be changed by sitting around complaining about the need for political socialist reform while working 40 hour weeks for capitalist business, purchasing everything you buy from capitalist business, and making investments in capitalist business. From what I see, no one here can even agree on what kind of socialist reform to make. And if the far far far left can't even agree on what they want, what chance is there for any socialist reform, especially in a nation where the right outnumbers the left and where the politics is moving further right each day?


> It free-rides on industrial society, while leaving most other social
> relations unchanged.

What free ride on industrial society? They have done this without capitalist investment. They aren't running a business owned by capitalists. They aren't purchasing nearly as much from capitalists as any 100 of the rest of us. They share resources. They grow a large amount of their own food using organic methods and as little energy as they can and some of those products are what they sell. They are making the biggest political statement anyone can make in today's society. They are *doing* their politics. That's quite a bit more impressive than just writing or complaining or voting for political reform in a nation where all the candidates, even the Democrats, are wealthy rightwing capitalists.

On Saturday 16 April 2005 10:44 am, Michael Dawson wrote:
>Tully, I say this with less malice than it might convey: "Scratch a
> hippie, find a Republican."

A REPUBLICAN??! Damn, what a kick to the teeth! ;) Are you basing this on what you know of the anarchists in Eugene? If not, what are you basing this on?


> Don't get me wrong. I like a lot
> about the hippie sensibility. But based on my years living in
> Eugene, Oregon, this statement is one I stand by, and you tend to
> confirm it.

Doesn't Eugene have more anarchists than hippies living there? Scratch certain anarchists and you are quite likely to find rightwing philosophy, or at least Libertarian. I gotta admit I'm sympathizing more with the anarchists every day, but not with the rightwing violent anarchists. I'm much more the peace and love flower child, tree hugger, bleeding heart type. Maybe I need to paint big bright flowers on my Geo Metro! That is bound to get noticed here in Southern Baptist country! lol

Seriously, the reason I'm leaning that way is because I no longer think gov't can help us as it is too corrupt. So I'm no "big gov't" fan. The Republicans used to say they didn't want big gov't either. But the Republicans lied. They do want big gov't so they can use it, its tax base, and its military to pursue their capitalist business interests.

What I'd rather see is distributed gov't, with the tax collection processed turned upside down, local townships collecting taxes and sending it up the ladder to the state, who sends it to the central gov, instead of the other way around like it is now. Those who control the money control the power, so let's keep the power localized where we can keep an eye on it and get to it. Let's take the power away from DC and its one stop lobbyist shopping mall. The local mayor would have more power than the POTUS. Give the central gov't what the Constitution mandated to them and nothing more. Their "small Navy" can be the Coast Guard. Our miiltary would go back to being state or local militias. That way, if the blue states didn't want to contribute to the war in Iraq, they'd simply not fund it. Let Texas fund it.


>Yes, corporate capitalism presents entirely new dangers, many of
> which are possible end-times issues. But return to smallness is
> not the answer economically any more than return to the 1950s is
> the answer for "family values."

My thinking about small is more in terms of redundancy, not simply small. I'd like to see MIcrosoft broken up into separate operating system, office systems, server systems, network system arms-length subsidiaries like was done to the Bell System in 1984. Then other smaller businesses would have a better chance at success in competition and redundancy. I don't know what to do about Walmart...


> If we are to save the world from
> war, ecological disaster, poverty, and cultural decay, we need
> more, not less, centralization of leading institutions.

I absolutely disagree. The USSR failed because of corruption. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. We can't trust government to do right by its people. They have too much to gain by not doing so. We need to bust up central power and distribute it out to where we can keep under control. The writers of our Constitution realized this truth and we've seen it displayed too well not to realize the wisdom of what their thinking and intention was. Huge central gov't is causing our problems. How can we expect it to solve them?


> That's just a fact, hippies or no hippies.

There's nothing factual about it. It's simply opinion.


> And Doug is right about the
> economic aspect. Small businesses in certain areas with certain
> rules (e.g., universal HC, livable minimum wages, etc.) are great
> secondary institutions. As primary ones, they stink.

I say let's leave it up to the regions to decide for themselves. I bet we'd see the blue states institute social reforms while the red states would continue to favor corporate reforms. Let the people move to the places that serve them best in a decentralized environment. Let Texas and the rest of the South fund the wars, breathe their own polluted air, and sicken in their own waste disposal. I'll move to the blue state. That way each side can have just what they want and we'll see who does better.

On Saturday 16 April 2005 12:45 pm, Dwayne Monroe wrote:
>There's an interesting quote that accidentally describes their
> profound dependence upon the larger world.

I really don't know what you expect here. Are you expecting that the only way a community can make a difference is to live entirely outside the realm of society, like the Amish? Even the Amish use some worldly goods. I hear cell phones have passed muster of some Amish communities, though land line phones still don't.


>Now that's nice but let's focus for a moment on the bit about using
> the *local auto parts store.* Behind that store (which may be part
> of a huge chain such as Pep Boys, Strauss, etc, etc) there's a vast
> and technologically intense infrastructure that engineers,
> manufactures and ships auto replacement and enhancement parts to
> retail outlets across the US -- indeed, the world. No vast
> technosphere, no replacement parts for machinery.

Maybe another community will take the niche of developing fan belts and another will do tires, and another steering linkages, and then after enough of those are in place, one starts assembling these parts into new cars. That's a way things can change. I don't understand this all-or-nothing evaluation. It has to be a gradual process. It can be speeded up if enough people start seeing its wisdom.

These communities or groups of people have the potential to replace capitalist business with co-op type or worker owned businesses. This country is not doing well in getting it to work. Elsewhere, there has been more success. For example, see:

http://www.iisd.org/50comm/commdb/desc/d13.htm


>I understand the appeal. Modernity, as it's currently structured,
> is dangerous and often frightening.

Yeah, you could say this. Its quite likely to get us all killed. This is a finite planet. It might be nice if we considered what we are leaving our kids and grandkids, much less 7 generations out from us. Won't they look back at our age (if they survive) and hate us for how we in a matter of a two lifetimes were so extravagant as to use up all the oil, then all the water, and in the process brought the planet to wild weather, massive deserts of dead soil or no topsoil, air dangerous to breathe, deadly radiation dust from DU weapons blown all over the world with a half life of a thousand years, punctured ozone holes, making it next to impossible for them to obtain and process metal, etc. because we were so selfish, extravagant, and blind? Do we continue to put our faith in technology and government to save us, the very things that caused this mess in the first place?

--tully



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