Monday, August 27, 2012

The Durable Future

"This book has been about those big somethings: our awning understanding of our ecological peril and our psychological malaise. We have much to fear, and also much to desire, and together our fear and our desire can set us on a new, more promising course" (McKibben 226). This is the last quote of the book, and it pretty much sums up all of the important points that the author made throughout the entire thing. It explains that we have to learn from our past mistakes to create a better future for ourselves.

Overall I found that the book "Deep Economy" was much better than I had expected it to be. The author made many very insightful points, and explained everything with amazing examples making it easier for me to understand the important points he was writing about.

Local Economies

In this section of the novel, author Bill McKibben discusses a major point in making a local economy work. The number one thing is that you must create a local currency. This type of local currency aims to supplement money not to replace it. McKibben explained this theory using a hypothetical situation about a small town in Vermont, in this experiment he spent his "Burlington" dollars on local things and spent his US. dollars on items that had to be purchased far away. By using this hypothetical situation McKibben explained that the money is not a replacement but merely a supplement. A quote from this section that I found to be interesting was, "Which means, theoretically, that since the value of money is based on trust, there should be room for plenty currencies to exist side by side" (McKibben 163).

When I began reading this section, I though McKibben was crazy for thinking that a local town could have their own currency. But as I kept reading, I understood what he meant, that the local money would only be used in town and regular US money outside of town, creating a stronger local economy.
photo of the author Bill McKibben

The Wealth of Communities

In the beginning of the fourth chapter, The Wealth of Communities, McKibben begins to explain the possibilities for local economy with not only food but with other commodities such as energy and timber. This part of the chapter showcases a major point in the book, that local economy can be important for other products, not just with food. I found this to be very fascinating, that McKibben could take something that he had talked about so much in the previous chapter, and elaborate more on it with a different topic. The first product that he relates back to being a more local economy is the radio. "Radio is, like food, a large part of most people's lives: 77 percent of the population listens to radio an average of at least three and a half hours a day, making it very nearly ubiquitous. And like food, radio used to be mostly local, hemmed in by mountains, limited by signal strength" (McKibben 131). This is just a small passage from the author Bill McKibben speaking about the radio.

Hyper-Individualism

Another very important point/problem that was presented towards the middle of the book was if hyper-individualism is damaging our lives. The proper definition of hyper-individualism is "a tendency for people to act in a highly individual way, without regard to society". McKibben writes about whether it is good for the economy if everyone just focuses on themselves. In doing so he reflects back on the past, and the problems that our governments and economies have had and how we resolved them. "The contemporary liberal answer to our predicament is continued economic growth, but with the benefits distributed more fairly and more of them put back into the public realm. We should try, in other words, to turn back the clock a couple of decades in our political and economic life, and then correct our trajectory slightly so that we stay highly (but not, perhaps, hyper-) individual" (McKibben 105).

 Although this is a very long quote, I feel like it sums up any questions any reader could have about the problems and also benefits of hyper-individualism. He is pretty much pointing out that although we do not need to get rid of it totally we may need to tailor it to fit our economy today, by using what we have learned from previous experiences.

All for One, or One for All

The third chapter of this book, starts off very different than the beginning of the rest of the chapters. In this introduction McKibben reflects upon the past history of our country, and the challenges that our people have had to face over the last five hundred years. He writes about all of the challenges that we have had to face and how we got through them. This is a very pivotal point in the novel because not only is he reflecting on the past, but he is looking forward toward the future. "The story of the last five hundred years is the story of continual emancipation. The people of the modern world have freed themselves from innumerable oppressions: absolute monarchy, feudalism, serfdom, slavery" (McKibben 95). I most definitely agree with McKibben throughout this section in the book. He makes very good points about how much has changed over the past five hundred years, and how much is still to be changed, like parts of our economy.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Bill McKibben speaking about his book Deep Economy



Farming Politics

Everyone knows that a lot of stuff in our world today depends upon politics, but little did I know until reading this part of the book, that even farming can turn very political. This is another one of the major points that McKibben makes, he explains that almost all of the money that goes to the farming industry, is given to the large farms that only focus on producing one crop. By giving these farms these subsidies it is causing them to have a very large advantage, but if these subsidies were taken away, then the playing field would be evened out for the smaller farms. "It's all politics- the farm progrm subsidizes those crops that are geographically concentrated in a few states, and hence, in essence have their own senators: wheat, corn, cotton, soybean, and rice growers get virtually all the federal subsidy payments" (McKibben 87). This quote further explains what I was talking about above, that all the government money is being given to large companies, causing it to be very political.

Working Conditions

A very controversial topic that also came up in the section about agriculture and the economy was the horrible treatment of the workers that have to work in these inhumane conditions. "Problems like these- huge sewage lagoons, miserable animals, abused workers, vulnerability to sabotage and to salmonella- are not, perhaps, inherent problems. You could envision a huge global food system that was willing to trade a little efficiency for slightly more humane working conditions or slightly better sewage treatment" (McKibben 62). Like McKibben said though these conditions can not be changed without completely changing the whole system of how our agriculture works.

When I read this section of the book, I immediately related it to the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. In the book Schlosser also writes a lot about the poor inhumane working conditions that some people have to go through when working for large companies. Overall I found that this part of the novel could be related and compared to many other books such as Fast Food Nation.

Modern Agriculture

As the novel continues into the second chapter, Bill McKibben begins to write about the advances in modern agriculture and its relationship with the economy. In this art he is pretty much praising the agriculture system of today, because they have been able to accomplish something that has been trying to be done for a long time now. Our system today is fast and efficient, in other words we produce a lot of food for a very small price, allowing more room for companies to profit. In this part of the novel, I really enjoyed how McKibben referenced back to other companies such as Wal-Mart and told parts of their stories. "The same forces that have created giant farms and processing plants have also worked to consolidate the retail end of the food business. As one Wal-Mart 'meat procurement officer' said, 'We've tried to apply our value proposition to all the meat products that we sell. The same principles of value, price, and quality that apply to things like television sets also apply to food" (McKibben 53). Overall I found this part of the novel to be one of the most fascinating, learning about all of the statistics of agriculture and companies such as Wal-Mart, was very eye opening. 

Increasing Wealth

Another part of the novel that I found very fascinating was when the author Bill McKibben was writing about some of the important mistakes us, as humans have made. In the beginning of the discussion on this topic he explains that the only thing we are focusing on is increasing our wealth. "On the list of important mistakes we've made as a species, this one seems pretty high up. A single-minded focus on increasing wealth had driven the planet's ecological systems to the brink of failure, without making us happier. How did we screw up?" (McKibben 43). I definitely believe that this is one of the major points/arguments presented by the author. He is explaining that if we continue just to focus on the increase of our own wealth, our economy is going to take a turn for the worse. Like he said just because this method may have worked in the past does not mean that it is going to work today.

Fixation on Growth

The introduction to the novel "Deep Economy" is very attention grabbing. The author Bill McKibben starts of with a quote from the worldly famous economist John Maynard Keynes. This is the theme throughout the entire first section. McKibben continues to reference upon very important authors. One of the major quotes that stuck out to me was about the fixation on growth and the challenges it faces. The passage includes three very trivial points on the challenges it faces. These points can be questioned by people because to some they might not be the most important three. "These three objections mesh with each other in important ways; taken together, they suggest that we'll no longer be able to act wisely, either in our individual lives or in public life, simply by asking which choice will produce More" (McKibben 11). This quote shows the importance of these three challenges and how they mesh together. After reading this section and many other parts of the novel, I have come to the decision that these are the three most important challenges that the fixation on growth is all about.