From: ausman@ocf.berkeley.edu (James Ausman)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Date: 5 Jan 1993 03:48:39 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: planecrash.berkeley.edu

In article <TED.93Jan2111311@lole.nmsu.edu> ted@nmsu.edu writes:
>
>In article <1678600006@igc.apc.org> Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org> writes:
>
>    [a long description with some questionable premises, culminating
>     in a pastoral description of how homeowners could form their own
>     cooperatives and supplant the evil sub-dividers and live in
>     eternal bliss near their square foot gardens]
>
>but the fact remains that this is a *very* rare situation.  i think
>that dale and his philosophical kin would like to blame this on `the
>system', but in fact, the system does nothing to prevent this sort of
>arrangement. 

It does many things to discourage this sort of arrangement, however.

>instead, i see the following factors as the major limitations on
>whether or not small cooperatives form
>
>1) organization.  getting one person to decide to develop an area is
>*much* easier than getting even 5 people to decide on something.

I live in a co-op and we routinely get dozens to decide on something.
Sure, we have a comittment to do so, but I think that if children
where spent 1/100 the time learning how group decision making works
that they spent learning how to compete with each other, I think we
would find it natural to do so.  In fact, this point is born out
by antropological studies of other cultures.

>2) timing.  assuming you find your 5 (or 100) other people who would
>like to cooperate in building a community, finding them at the same
>time is nearly impossible.  the traditional developer makes this
>timing much more lax; he starts the development and the residents
>filter in on their own time.  this lack of synchronicity makes it much
>easier to make anything happen.

Only because the resources aren't there.  I bet if I was ready to set
up a permanent living arrangement, that I could find a dozen willing
to do it with me, through the connections I have developed in the 
co-op world.
>
>3) risk.  how in the world are you going to convince real people to
>put up their life savings in the face of factors 1 and 2?  wouldn't it
>just be easier to get them to put up their savings to form a
>traditional subdivision combine?
>
Well, on this one I am going to really go off the deep end. ;`)
I think the only real security lies in the people around you.  How
secure is a deed of paper?  Only as good as the government that 
backs it up!  I don't know what the average life of a government
is, but I bet it is about 1/2 a  generation.  We live in a particularly
stable one, but I am getting a stronger feeling every day that we are
in for some big changes pretty soon.

>4) skill.  forming an organization, dealing with zoning, neighbors and
>builders is an art which most people have no skill in whatsoever.
>whether you like it or not, a successful subdivider has many skills
>in a combination that almost nobody has.  the proof of this is in the
>fact that there are only a few successful subdividers and they reap
>large profits.

Sad, but true.  One of the things that can be learned, however, and I 
have learned a lot in my two years of helping run the student co-op 
here.

>in particular, the following factors are *not* to blame for the
>disparity in styles of development:
>
>1) desire.  this country has a population so large that you can be
>2) capital.  come now.  the people who live in the subdivision had

agreed and agreed

>3) evil capitalists.  nobody kept the people living in the burbs from
>developing the land the eventually bought.  nobody except themselves,
>that is, and they had excellent reasons at the time.
>
Well, disagreed here.  But some other posters have probably stated the
case better than I can.  Evil is definitely too strong a term, though.
Seriously misguided is what I would say.  But people tend to want to 
do what will get them accepted and what everyone else does, so who can
blame them for buying into a system hammered into them from a very 
small age.  How many thousand of hours of television commercials does
a child watch uncritically before age 12?  How many people even seriously
examine the economic system they live in?  Or Economics in general? I 
know that you do, and I respect you for it, but seriously, how much of
the general poplution has given it a thought do you think?

Jim Ausman
-- 
	"You are not thinking.  You are merely being logical."
				-Niels Bohr to A. Einstein 
				(during their famous debates on QM)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens