From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: The Criterion for Ecocentrism
Distribution: world
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 02:55:31 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Nov9.011738.28431@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP writes:

 > Sorry that's still not true. It may be true that to meet WHO standards
 > they have to ban autos, but the point is that meeting WHO standards is
 > a political *choice*. I also suspect that in January of 1989 school
 > children *did* leave their homes after being given the month off, and
 > probably spent more time outside than if they had been in classrooms.
 > If that's true, closing the schools was a *symbolic* act.

Frankly, this type of cynicism is appalling. Diogenes the iconoclast
once masturbated in the public streets of Athens in an attempt to
demonstrate that nothing matters, and your attempt here at recreating
a hypothetical and I might add irrelevant scenario in criticism of
decisions which need to be made by government from time to time is
of the same order.

Does it occur to you, Gary, that "political" decisions arising from
the advice of medical experts may not at all be intended to save the
bacon of some politician, but to improve the health of the citizenry
which by its poor state may be impoverishing the nation itself? Who
might be in power from time to time would be expected to make the
same types of decision, following the same advice from the same
experts concerned with the same reality of unacceptably poor health
among their constituency, or get kicked out as unmitigated fools at
the next poll.

 > Money is the counter we use to measure economic activity and material
 > well being. If there's a better quanitative measure available, I'm willing
 > to consider using that. Now as to economic crop losses, let's contrast that
 > with the economic value of vehiclular transportation. Last year trucks
 > carried goods, the transport of which was worth roughly $4.5 *trillion* 
 > dollars. That means that if they were responible for *all* the crop damage, 
 > that would still only be .12% of the value of transport.

Sorry, but the use of money to measure economic activity and material
well-being is very restricted indeed, to a relatively few societies
and to fewer cultures. In the West the device was borrowed relatively
recently, in fact, from Imperial China to assist in the administration
of government. Still today, moreover, its management is wrought with
difficulty.

Anyone who cares to examine the very real problems of inflation will
quickly discover that while money may appear a quantitative measure
in that its arithmetic is so simple any school child can add and
subtract using that medium, its value must always be underwritten by
government policies altered from time to time according to the advice
of independent valuers, usually through a central Treasury with the
authority to print the stuff.

Our State Government Insurance Commission last financial year wrote
$150 million value off its property portfolio, merely on the basis of
their decision to heed the advice of the more conservative of two
wholly independent opinions, given a contracting inner-city property
market arising from massive over-speculation in office accomodation
during the 1980s. The S&L scandal in the US constitutes a similar
problem only of very many orders of magnitude larger that we have
ever experienced here in Australia, where literally millions of
people's life "savings" simply evaporated into nothing at all.

I tell you now, money valued without reference to the real value of
human productivity is inevitably barely worth the paper it is printed
on. Anyone who is silly enough to rely on it alone is headed directly
for the bankruptcy court without any shadow of doubt. There is no
question of whether it will happen, only when, as brokers run around
frantically trying to keep the thing propped up somehow and taking
their percentages at every turn into the bargain.

In the meantime, out in the community Australians are rapidly returning
to a more reliable and sustainable barter system administered through
a local credit registrar, called the LETS Scheme. It works by parties
to any transaction agreeing on how many credits are to be added against
the person's name who is providing the goods or services, and subtracted
against the recipient's name. If you don't want to work yourself your
account will be in deficit, and nobody will do anything to help you;
suit yourself in a democracy.

This idea is no different from the universal system of social credits
permeating communities everywhere on earth, except that here a slightly
more formal regime has been imposed to prevent disputes breaking out
over any value differentials which might ordinarily have arisen in the
absence of an independent credit registrar keeping the books.

The system in place now has the blessing of government, and and is
coordinated on a state-wide basis here in Western Australia through
the Community Development Unit of the Department of State Development.
I understand the other states have something similar.

Is it something like that you are willing to consider using, Gary, or
something else someone might like to suggest? At our end, we simply
see no argument about it, there being no point waiting for real poverty
to set in while the economists, valuers, banks and financial brokers
maintaining the money system get their act together.

Yes?

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *