UR Part of It

We have ignored the reality of time from the biological perspective in devising our current economic system. We have also largely ignored the reality of touch in devising our economic system. All things touch, touch has present and future consequences, when touch extends farther beyond the immediate sphere of the individual it becomes less private. Time is the epitome of all material both in the time it took for the material to be created by nature, the time it takes to replenish the stored time of used materials, and the human time it took to create the product out of the materials. When touch expands in terms of how far it extends from the individual it creates more touch feedback's, because all touch is mutually effective. The effect of the industrial revolution has greatly extended human touch, and we have a system that aligns all humans in a similar pattern of touch further making the touch more universal, or extended, therefore the feedback's are immense as well.

Given that our current economic and political systems have been developed exclusively in response to human social needs a systematic reorientation to take human continuity with the ecosystem into account will seem to be a radical departure from the norm. In this case the norm is the problem because it has not adapted to the reality of our situation. In our public discourse about the issue one of the dominant themes is the absence of widespread serious discussion about changing our economic system. Herman Daly, the environmental economist, is considered far outside the mainstream of modern economic thought because he asserts that the economy functions within the environment while traditional economic thought sees the environment as a throughput of the economy.

When I look at the assumptions of capitalist market economics, as it relates to the use of industrial power and the human effect on the habitat to which we are biologically adapted, I see a fundamental flaw. Markets are human social valuation systems, biology and habitat are not human social systems but are instead the socially silent foundation of human existence and consciousness, and they are not adequately valued from an exclusively human social point of view.

Culture is the set of shared assumptions and agreements that form the operating environment for groups of people to participate cooperatively with each other in the pursuit of their individual and collective needs. Culture is the set of shared assumptions and agreements that form the operating environment for groups of people to participate cooperatively with each other in the pursuit of their individual and collective needs. Culture existed before civilization and it will exist after civilization. In fact culture is not an exclusively human attribute. Primates have been shown to create culture that persists across generations and become the governing set of assumptions in a primate troop after the originators of the culture and their immediate relations have all died.

Discussion of efficiency and profitability are based on the assumptions of current accounting methods. These methods are based on the point of view of the irreducibly separate individual. The only way that profit can accrue is for the minus on the side of where the resources are taken (outside the self, in the externalities) is ignored and attributed to the seller/producer of the good or service. Discussion of efficiency and profitability are based on the assumptions of current accounting methods. These methods are based on the point of view of the irreducibly separate individual. The only way that profit can accrue is for the minus on the side of where the resources are taken (outside the self, in the externalities) is ignored and attributed to the seller/producer of the good or service. If this is not done there is no profit to be had. Moving resources from one side of the self boundary to the other always requires energy to create motion and overcome the friction in the boundary crossing and it is only energy (mostly in the form of matter and human time/energy) that is moved from one place to another. Where is the profit?

Building an Economy is like Building a Two Story House

Our current economy is a suck up economy, it sucks resources up and concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer hands while depleting the generating capacity of the resources from which the resources are sucked up from in the first place.

The global economic model of the developed world can be compared to the process of building a house. The current model tries to build a house that continually remodels and expands it?s self. The construction method is centered around taking materials out of the foundation and the first floor and using them to build a second story. The design of the house further specifies that the second story would always be moving away from the first story and becoming more massive as it gets farther away from the first story.

Eventually this house is bound to collapse by it?s own top heavy structure and the ever growing distance between the first and second floor and the continual weakening of the foundation and first floor that are used to built the second story and propel it further and further above the first floor.

The mother of all economic systems is food production in excess of requirements to support the present population and it?s projected growth rate. In the face of climate change the most resilient food production system would be a complex web of small local production, large scale regional production, and minimal large scale trans regional production. Climate, water, and soil quantity and quality are the bedrock of this productive capacity. Externalities that impact this part of the economy must be properly valued and the costs paid by the producer of the externality. The cost of eroding the foundation of our economic house should be high enough that further erosion is prevented. Restoring erosion that has already occurred must be accomplished through an investment of social and technical capital over a period, as short as possible, so that further development of sustainable civilization can proceed.

Continuing with the metaphor of building an economic system like it was a two-story house we will start with the most important element of the house, the foundation and first floor. The building blocks of this level of the economy are the ability to transform and deliver food, housing, water and sanitation to every person in the country. A non-polluting renewable energy infrastructure, transportation, and communication system will be required to both produce and distribute these goods. The medium of exchange for applying resources in this level of the economy should not be money, as we know it today. The resources required for the foundation and first floor of the economy, if it is to be designed as a self-replenishing system, must not be transferable to the production of goods and services transformed for the purposes of second floor economic development.