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A Sustainable Earth: A Collection of Villages
Peter McKillop - Post # 3376 - 23/9/17
1. "If I'm understanding what it is you're proposing, I think it's unworkable and undesirable."
Response
Peter, you understand perfectly what I am proposing! I hope to convince you that it is both "workable" and "desirable"!
2. "If you have (tens of) thousands of self-governing villages, how would you ever deal efficiently with all of the disparities of geography and economic potential?"
Response
a. Geographic Differences
There is no doubt that geography showers certain benefits on the residents. For example, if you are a village on the Mediterranean Sea, there are economic advantages to having a Port. Are there any advantages to being a village in the middle of the Sahara Desert? Dry Air may be one from the health point of view of some people.
But your point is totally sound.
The goal of the "Sustainable Earth Project" is that through "cooperation", and "altruism", villages will work hard not to "win", but to help other villages to be 'Sustainable", even if that may mean some inequality of trade. This new paradigm works only if ALL villages are "sustainable". And this may require that some villages are helped in some way by others (Sort of like Canadian Federal-Provincial transfer payments). The goal is that each village is unique and has something to offer, that will keep the residents happy to be a resident in their village. We cannot afford to have villages that just don't work.
b. Economic Potential Differences
Again disparity causes problems........yes it is wonderful that some villages will have much greater economic potential than others. And we want to exploit this to the maximum (Within the rules of sustainability). But it is not "us for ourselves" in the Sustainable Earth.....it is we (All Villages) must achieve some decent local civic quality of life....so there is going to have to be "bartering", and it may have to be "Subsidy Bartering".........one village can trade something the other needs, for what it needs, despite the disparity of value of what is being "traded".
This is truly a sticky wicket, as Peter points out.
Dilip has proposed thinking in terms of "regions of circles". So any village has a "circle of villages" around its borders. The most natural dynamic economically is for the village, and those in its first concentric circle, to enter into bi-lateral, and multi-lateral arrangements, so that all get what they need, and can accomplish tasks important to all, efficiently.
3. "How would you deal with funding/building the physical/legal infrastructure needed to support inter-village dealings like trade?"
Response
One could consider regional transportation as an "infrastructure" problem for a village to solve. This seems most amenable to cooperation - a village coalition to set up a regional transport authority for all of them in the first circle.
This is not so simple though..........we have circles overlaying circles in this paradigm.......But I believe that villages will be able to negotiate a workable, and desirable, solution to mass transit, where there is going to be decent service for all the residents of all villages in the "Coalition".
4. "How, for example, would you deal with poverty-stricken villages that have no prospects for improving themselves because all of their scarce resources are used up by their subsistence-level existence?"
Response
I think that the only partial, and substantial, solution to this is "Transfer Payments" to the "less sustainable on their own" villages. It may also be that some unsustainable villages will simply have to join with one or more bordering villages to achieve at least some basic level of sustainability, which then can be subsidized.
Invitation
Let the free-for-all now begin!
Bob A (I really do think this is NOT about COVID-19, and CAN be discussed in the CT Human Self-Government thread, where this conversation belongs.)
Peter McKillop - Post # 3376 - 23/9/17
1. "If I'm understanding what it is you're proposing, I think it's unworkable and undesirable."
Response
Peter, you understand perfectly what I am proposing! I hope to convince you that it is both "workable" and "desirable"!
2. "If you have (tens of) thousands of self-governing villages, how would you ever deal efficiently with all of the disparities of geography and economic potential?"
Response
a. Geographic Differences
There is no doubt that geography showers certain benefits on the residents. For example, if you are a village on the Mediterranean Sea, there are economic advantages to having a Port. Are there any advantages to being a village in the middle of the Sahara Desert? Dry Air may be one from the health point of view of some people.
But your point is totally sound.
The goal of the "Sustainable Earth Project" is that through "cooperation", and "altruism", villages will work hard not to "win", but to help other villages to be 'Sustainable", even if that may mean some inequality of trade. This new paradigm works only if ALL villages are "sustainable". And this may require that some villages are helped in some way by others (Sort of like Canadian Federal-Provincial transfer payments). The goal is that each village is unique and has something to offer, that will keep the residents happy to be a resident in their village. We cannot afford to have villages that just don't work.
b. Economic Potential Differences
Again disparity causes problems........yes it is wonderful that some villages will have much greater economic potential than others. And we want to exploit this to the maximum (Within the rules of sustainability). But it is not "us for ourselves" in the Sustainable Earth.....it is we (All Villages) must achieve some decent local civic quality of life....so there is going to have to be "bartering", and it may have to be "Subsidy Bartering".........one village can trade something the other needs, for what it needs, despite the disparity of value of what is being "traded".
This is truly a sticky wicket, as Peter points out.
Dilip has proposed thinking in terms of "regions of circles". So any village has a "circle of villages" around its borders. The most natural dynamic economically is for the village, and those in its first concentric circle, to enter into bi-lateral, and multi-lateral arrangements, so that all get what they need, and can accomplish tasks important to all, efficiently.
3. "How would you deal with funding/building the physical/legal infrastructure needed to support inter-village dealings like trade?"
Response
One could consider regional transportation as an "infrastructure" problem for a village to solve. This seems most amenable to cooperation - a village coalition to set up a regional transport authority for all of them in the first circle.
This is not so simple though..........we have circles overlaying circles in this paradigm.......But I believe that villages will be able to negotiate a workable, and desirable, solution to mass transit, where there is going to be decent service for all the residents of all villages in the "Coalition".
4. "How, for example, would you deal with poverty-stricken villages that have no prospects for improving themselves because all of their scarce resources are used up by their subsistence-level existence?"
Response
I think that the only partial, and substantial, solution to this is "Transfer Payments" to the "less sustainable on their own" villages. It may also be that some unsustainable villages will simply have to join with one or more bordering villages to achieve at least some basic level of sustainability, which then can be subsidized.
Invitation
Let the free-for-all now begin!
Bob A (I really do think this is NOT about COVID-19, and CAN be discussed in the CT Human Self-Government thread, where this conversation belongs.)
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