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If electricity is necessary to survival, yes, they'll want it.

If?

There will still be "trade," but it will be oriented toward achieving the means of subsistence rather than the accumulation of capital.

Doesn't answer the question of who has the electronics factories, vehicle ones, the universities, the power plants, the rail plant manufacturing, the pharma, etc.

How likely is this scenario?  You're going to have a community which lives in an area, which is planning to ruin that area's ecosystem for the sake of extracting coal, and which will have neither coal nor livable land once the coal runs out?  Who's going to vote for that?

LOL. I guess you haven't ever spent any time in a mining community. It lasts a long time, it's a culture, and a lifestyle.  A century down the road your great great grandkids can worry or move.

What is the point of this sarcastic little dig?  Figure it out yourself, if you even care.

That you're presuming a socio-cultural mindset which doesn't exist and which I imagine even you don't think will come into being overnight. In the meantime those mining and logging and other communities will vote for what they want - more of the same. So that means you either accept that or you establish a centralized coercive apparatus. I'm curious whether you opt for the environmentally harmful but non coercive option, or the existence of a central government with the power of coercion.

Are communities in power now?

Nope, but I don't want them to be. Local interests need to be balanced against broader ones. That's why multiple levels of government are a good idea.

by MarekNYC on Thu Apr 24th, 2008 at 02:37:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
LOL. I guess you haven't ever spent any time in a mining community.

Mining communities are not autonomous.  It may "be a culture," but it's a culture dependent upon a money system which comes to it from outside.

That you're presuming a socio-cultural mindset which doesn't exist

Wrong.  There clearly exist groups which Joan Martinez-Alier counts among the "environmentalism of the poor" -- the movement for community revitalization, the environmental justice movement, the rural peasantry, and so on, all of which are potentially open to a world society existing along such lines.

So that means you either accept that or you establish a centralized coercive apparatus.

You mean like the centralized coercive apparatus of Wall Street, in the city (NYC) that is part of your nom de plume?  Sorry, that already exists.

"Imagine all the people/ Sharing all the world" -- John Lennon

by Cassiodorus on Thu Apr 24th, 2008 at 02:56:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Mining communities are not autonomous.  It may "be a culture," but it's a culture dependent upon a money system which comes to it from outside.

Of course they're not autonomous, nor is anyone else, so what's the point?

Wrong.  There clearly exist groups which Joan Martinez-Alier counts among the "environmentalism of the poor" -- the movement for community revitalization, the environmental justice movement, the rural peasantry, and so on, all of which are potentially open to a world society existing along such lines.

Really? If you look at successful progressive movements they all include at their basis a higher standard of living for the majority of society with that being defined in the traditional way.

You mean like the centralized coercive apparatus of Wall Street, in the city (NYC) that is part of your nom de plume?  Sorry, that already exists.

Actually rather decentralized. And if you're suggesting that the desire for increased standard of living is the result of coercion you're mostly wrong. The coercion that that shift required has already run its course in most of the world.  The level of violence and coercion required to reverse it would be similar to the sum total of that exercized by capitalism and communism over the past two centuries. Add that to the chaos and suffering caused by climate change and resource depletion and even if I found your end stage utopia attractive, rather than some sort of nightmarish dystopia, it still would be crazy to try to implement under the present circumstances.

by MarekNYC on Thu Apr 24th, 2008 at 03:20:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Really? If you look at successful progressive movements

Did I say I was a "progressive"?

And what's a "successful progressive movement"?  The "progressives" have done rather less than nothing to stop neoliberalism.

Actually rather decentralized.

In the US you have a wealthiest 1% which owns half of all non-home capital assets.  You have Washington DC printing its money and Wall Street trading the Fortune 500's assets.  Globally you have the World Economic Forum, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the WTO, the IMF/World Bank, a few hundred billionaires which own as much as the bottom half of humanity, and so on.

Sorry, power in the US and in today's world is centralized, far more so than what I'm proposing.

"Imagine all the people/ Sharing all the world" -- John Lennon

by Cassiodorus on Thu Apr 24th, 2008 at 03:35:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Of course they're not autonomous, nor is anyone else, so what's the point?

In the wake of the coming ecosystem crises, people will want more autonomy, not less.

"Imagine all the people/ Sharing all the world" -- John Lennon

by Cassiodorus on Thu Apr 24th, 2008 at 04:05:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I think you're wrong on that. If there is any risk at all of societal collapse people will become more interdependent, not less.

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed May 7th, 2008 at 09:42:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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