Politics

Is solidarity a thing of the past?

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Humans now labor in narrow occupational niches within our highly complex society in the same way that species occupy ecological niches in nature. This specialization leads to competition within each niche for the limited number of positions available. Consequently, the harder the economic times, the more intense the competition for the reduced number of positions within each niche. This leads to anxiety among those already holding a job since they are often not skilled enough to find work in other niches. The employee often asks himself or herself, “What could I possibly do if I were no longer able to do this kind of work?” Naturally, this concern also creates anxiety among those who are unemployed and seeking jobs within a particular niche.

So, it is no wonder that those in the middle and lower strata of society have a difficult time joining together for common action when they are daily locked in a struggle over keeping or getting jobs in their respective niches.

Fascination for Death

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We are a peculiar culture. We are extremely reluctant to accept the possibility that our civilization might decline and fall, like all those which have preceded us, yet consider the idea of utterly trashing the biosphere with a fascination which would have made an early twentieth century symbolist uneasy. We have had another example of it with a paper published in the June issue of Nature.

A crisis of legitimacy

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Over the last week or two, the peak oil scene has been going through another round of its ongoing flirtation with fantasies of overnight collapse. This time the trigger was a recent paper by David Korowicz of Feasta. Iit’s a well-written study, limited only by a few frankly unrealistic assumptions about how governments tend to react when faced with an immediate threat to national survival.

A critical mass for real food

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This, a doorway in West Africa’s Elmina Fort, is a Door of No Return. It is the last part of Africa you would touch if you were a slave being led from the dungeon to a waiting ship.

If the logic of the industrial system is based on profit, the logic of real food is founded on respect and balance. Real food isn’t opposed to profit, but it is opposed to profits that aren’t shared fairly with those who work the hardest to feed us. The Door of No Return represents what’s we’re up against: a global industrial food economy 500 years in the making that exploits both people and land.

A Complexity Approach to Sustainability – Theory and Application: Review

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The sustainability of a human society is not just about its relationship with the environment: it’s a problem concerning the nature of the society and the way it is organised. This is the important message of a book by Angela Espinosa and Jon Walker: A Complexity Approach to Sustainability — Theory and Practice. Both authors were pupils and colleagues of the late Stafford Beer who saw that hierarchical forms of government were incapable of dealing with the complexity of the problems faced by modern societies.

Mitt Romney: peak oiler?

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In his 2010 book, Romney speaks about Peak Oil, cites Matt Simmons’s book “Twilight in the desert” and says that, “whether the peak is already past or will be reached within a few years, world oil supply will decline at some point.” And then he doesn’t say that the solution is just drilling more. He says that using less oil and in finding alternatives for it are just as important as solutions.

Pulitzer-Winning Reporting Duo Don Barlett and James Steele on “The Betrayal of the American Dream” (Parts 1 and 2)

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The famed award-winning investigative reporting team of Donald Barlett and James Steele have just published a new book, “The Betrayal of the American Dream,” a followup to their landmark bestseller, “America: What Went Wrong?” As Republicans and Democrats continue disputing who should bear the brunt of the tax burden, Barlett and Steele argue that America’s middle class has been decimated over the years due to policies governing not only taxes but also bank regulations, trade deficits and pension funds. Their book chronicles how the American middle class has been systematically impoverished and its prospects thwarted in favor of a new ruling elite.