Take a virtuous cycle up.
Redefining Productivity
Every day we are being threatened by job losses and other effects of the economic downturn. Each of us is personally affected - with family, loved ones and neighbors who: are working several jobs and still not making enough money; have become unemployed or underemployed; are in jeopardy of losing their homes; may be unable to pay their rent; have budgets crippled by price rises. Assumptions about the future have been taken away by loss of savings and collapsing social services.
Some of us are walking wounded, asking for help from a community increasingly unable to provide a safety net. Others are reacting by saying "I've got my own problems." Few see we're all in the same boat. And each of us is tempted to think our own problems are worse than others, forgetting that our basic connectedness is the only rock we've ever really had to cling to.
There is no need to have unemployment in this country. There is so much work to do! The problem is that we don't have a system in which people are paid to do the things that actually need done. We need a world in which people are paid to do the really useful things, and not paid to do destructive things.
Economics is a funny science. Working in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the late 70's(a slum at the time), I saw daily situations in which people didn't have enough to eat well. So I was stunned to read that President Carter had taken action to raise the price of wheat - "to help the farmers" hurt by low wheat prices. Wait a minute, I thought, won't that raise the price of food? Since then I have come to recognize that people who don't have money can't generate demand - as far as the economy is concerned, they are invisible.
Why are we seeing this worldwide economic downturn? People are being left out. If you're an average business person, you're not interested in places where people don't have much money. So more and more sections of our cities and the world have become "red-lined" - not worth doing business with or in. Previous poor outcomes reinforce the expectation of a bad outcome in the future, so there's a trend toward areas becoming poorer. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with our neighborhood Hazelwood, for instance. If we and investors interested in our community change expectations and act accordingly, outcomes will change.
We've all heard of "vicious cycles." Feedback effects on Planet Earth at this time in history are resulting in vicious cycle effects such as unexpectedly high greenhouse gas levels. But there's also something called a "virtuous cycle." Look it up on Wikipedia. A virtuous cycle in economics is when some positive change - as it gradually catches on - becomes easier and more profitable because more and more are doing it and because of the economies of scale. This has been happening in recent years with organic locally grown food and composting.
Years ago, the words "organic" and "compost" were not used the way they are now. But people like myself made them popular by our absolute obsession to make a cleaner and healthier world. We were often thought of as troublemakers. People were convinced food waste belonged in the garbage. "What are you doing in the garbage? Are you crazy? I'm going to call the police. You're drawing rats, flies, mosquitoes, and disease by what you're doing. You're lowering property values. Nobody wants to live near a dump (a compost heap)." And the absolute best one was, "What you're doing is not natural" when in fact the really unnatural thing to do is to ship organic waste to a landfill.
Now the composter is defined as productive and so profitable rather than a troublemaker and a problem. This is the type of change we all need. The city helped with our neighborhood food garden because it was the right thing to do to help feed poor people. But it was also understood to be a great way to raise the value of the whole area. The city's investment in gardens pays off in numerous ways, from increasing property values to attracting investment. This is just one more example of how the virtuous cycle of society's return of organics to the Earth has made what was unprofitable profitable.
In the stagnation of the economy we're seeing the birth of a new economy based on regenerating the Earth - real productivity. Rather than just go along with a vicious downward cycle - into the interconnected curses of war, famine, disease, and poverty - we can break the mold and spearhead virtuous cycles which build healthy communities by using our waste biomass to recharge our local economies.
Every day we are being threatened by job losses and other effects of the economic downturn. Each of us is personally affected - with family, loved ones and neighbors who: are working several jobs and still not making enough money; have become unemployed or underemployed; are in jeopardy of losing their homes; may be unable to pay their rent; have budgets crippled by price rises. Assumptions about the future have been taken away by loss of savings and collapsing social services.
Some of us are walking wounded, asking for help from a community increasingly unable to provide a safety net. Others are reacting by saying "I've got my own problems." Few see we're all in the same boat. And each of us is tempted to think our own problems are worse than others, forgetting that our basic connectedness is the only rock we've ever really had to cling to.
There is no need to have unemployment in this country. There is so much work to do! The problem is that we don't have a system in which people are paid to do the things that actually need done. We need a world in which people are paid to do the really useful things, and not paid to do destructive things.
Economics is a funny science. Working in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the late 70's(a slum at the time), I saw daily situations in which people didn't have enough to eat well. So I was stunned to read that President Carter had taken action to raise the price of wheat - "to help the farmers" hurt by low wheat prices. Wait a minute, I thought, won't that raise the price of food? Since then I have come to recognize that people who don't have money can't generate demand - as far as the economy is concerned, they are invisible.
Why are we seeing this worldwide economic downturn? People are being left out. If you're an average business person, you're not interested in places where people don't have much money. So more and more sections of our cities and the world have become "red-lined" - not worth doing business with or in. Previous poor outcomes reinforce the expectation of a bad outcome in the future, so there's a trend toward areas becoming poorer. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with our neighborhood Hazelwood, for instance. If we and investors interested in our community change expectations and act accordingly, outcomes will change.
We've all heard of "vicious cycles." Feedback effects on Planet Earth at this time in history are resulting in vicious cycle effects such as unexpectedly high greenhouse gas levels. But there's also something called a "virtuous cycle." Look it up on Wikipedia. A virtuous cycle in economics is when some positive change - as it gradually catches on - becomes easier and more profitable because more and more are doing it and because of the economies of scale. This has been happening in recent years with organic locally grown food and composting.
Years ago, the words "organic" and "compost" were not used the way they are now. But people like myself made them popular by our absolute obsession to make a cleaner and healthier world. We were often thought of as troublemakers. People were convinced food waste belonged in the garbage. "What are you doing in the garbage? Are you crazy? I'm going to call the police. You're drawing rats, flies, mosquitoes, and disease by what you're doing. You're lowering property values. Nobody wants to live near a dump (a compost heap)." And the absolute best one was, "What you're doing is not natural" when in fact the really unnatural thing to do is to ship organic waste to a landfill.
Now the composter is defined as productive and so profitable rather than a troublemaker and a problem. This is the type of change we all need. The city helped with our neighborhood food garden because it was the right thing to do to help feed poor people. But it was also understood to be a great way to raise the value of the whole area. The city's investment in gardens pays off in numerous ways, from increasing property values to attracting investment. This is just one more example of how the virtuous cycle of society's return of organics to the Earth has made what was unprofitable profitable.
In the stagnation of the economy we're seeing the birth of a new economy based on regenerating the Earth - real productivity. Rather than just go along with a vicious downward cycle - into the interconnected curses of war, famine, disease, and poverty - we can break the mold and spearhead virtuous cycles which build healthy communities by using our waste biomass to recharge our local economies.
posted by St. Jim the Composter at 9:49 AM
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