Gardening without..............

.....................sensitivity towards nature. 

• More food is produced and a higher population is maintained, albeit with half of them malnourished and living in misery; the rest seem to be living in fear of suffering from conditions that are induced by the very products used to increase production.

• Large agricultural companies make huge profits and employ large numbers of people, often in poor conditions for low wages; their well paid workers live in cities and work in offices to maximise the return on the investments.

Introducing new neighbours

Now that we have a productive and non-toxic living space we can introduce other species to share the work in the garden with us.  I started with chickens.

The dog

A visit to the Vet

The cat

The chickens

Putting them to work

Lucy duck

The future

Stop being negative and plant the potatoes

Planting under straw

Reference

Neighbours

March 2002

We are sharing our planet with a dangerous monster which is taking away our jobs, our property our dignity, and finally our hope. It is degrading the quality of life of all of us.  Even our power to fight against it is being absorbed and our motivation is constantly distracted.  We cannot stop it. We will be destroyed if we fight against it - or seem to. We can only join it if we can be profitable to it.  We cannot live totally without or outside of it as long as it continues.

But what is it?

It is the global economic system, and the tendency towards monopolism that drives it;    called   by   some liberalism, capitalism, in other localities it appears as market communism. In the early 1960's Pierre Cardin described it as corporatism and included the USSR. It is not only these things.  The governments, political and legal institutions which claim to control it are indeed financed by it. What we call public services are part of it being financed by a percentage of its profits which we call taxes and charges.  These are also levied on our; salaries and all that we buy. In Britain in the early 1970’s they were calculated at around 80% of the average income for the average person.

It controls all means of communication, information, publicity, study and research but it cannot totally control the content, which alone comes from individual creative energies.  It has the means to buy the majority of the content and the infrequent, out of context item even gives the illusion of free expression.

It has a unique objective, to make a profit for the owners of the land, the raw materials, the installations, the equipment, the goods, the ideas, the processes and the infrastructure; who jointly monopolise the provision of the goods and services on which we depend. Even the most isolated   communities   being increasingly drawn into its domain. The owners of this vast globalised   economy   practice investment - and disinvestment - for their own personal profit. No other personal motive can replace the profit motive.    Without profits the system would soon collapse. So each one of us that considers themselves an owner -and  most  of  us  still  have something - continues this horrific quest for personal profit, to get one over on their neighbour.

We can see where this is leading us: in a perpetual game in which each one risks their capital - their work, investment or ideas - to obtain a profit or, of course, a loss. The losers sell their work and ideas - their investment being lost - to others who, of course, profit from it. More and more of us can no longer play the game but many are tempted by lotteries into risking part of their meagres resources in a vain hope of fortune. In spite of our continued ownership of a few possessions, unless we are able to assure our own autonomy, we are non-owners, the poor.

Globalisation and technological advance mean that they need our labour less and less, as revealed in the rising levels of un- or under­employment.     The rise is underestimated by the dubious process of removing categories from the unemployment statistics; so that the average 3 - 4 millions of unemployed declared in most West    European countries represent 8 millions according to the method of calculation in use 50 years ago. Then, the number of unemployed was counted in the tens of thousands.   We are experiencing a dramatic slide into uselessness,   accompanied   by feelings of inadequacy and guilt, of a growing number et people throughout the world  We are called  refugees  or  economic migrants,   beggars,   tramps, squatters, travelers, protesters, delinquents, criminals, terrorists. Sometimes we are; mostly we're depressed or more generally mentally ill.

Depression is increasing at an alarming rate and grouped with other mental illnesses, ranks as the worlds third most serious illness affecting 1 in 4 at same time  during  their  lifetime. Although mental illness has mostly psychological i.e. relational and hence social causes, the main treatments offered are tranquilisers and sedatives in an attempt to make sufferers operational, that is employable if required. They rarely are.

We must face the fact that we are no longer required. Cheaper workers in third-world countries and automation are replacing our previous functions, our reason for being here. We must face up to the fact that we are not the owners, that we are no longer required and that we are not dead - yet. In the meantime we can act differently.

Alongside this monstrous machine which takes all our resources in return for frequently suspect products we can create new forms of relations with others which no longer seek to profit. What I call - good business - business with profits for both sides. Not the ‘winner takes all' system that is ubiquitously on offer.

There is a system of neighbourliness which operates between the members of extended families and more generally among the poor. I once heard that "our friends and enemies come and go. The neighbours are always there." You may, or may not like each other, that can be modified by the behaviour that you cultivate between you. You can be yourself, openly  and without hypocrisy. You can respect them; that is to accept that they are who they are and that they are not likely to depart; that you cannot always rely or them. Sometimes you can. To do this we must get to know them. This can only grow from honest, frank and respectful exchanges.  We can learn that our particular strengths and weaknesses can compliment    one    another. Networks of such relationships enable the satisfaction of needs in poor communities.

The rules that govern them are simple.  We live close to each other, we respect one another, we start to know one another and we come to trust one another; just how far in each case. This multi-layered   structure   of relationships is a system of solidarity.  We are building a new system   as the economic system leaves us aside.

Let us understand its values and live by them.   The economic monster cannot   destroy   all   the relationships that we build. It does have its weak points; feeding on human energies and natural resources.  It is destroying the natural world but our human energy is our own.  When we no longer have any investment in the economy we have only our lives to lose and we will lose them in any case. 

Let us take control of our own lives again.

• If we want to know our neighbour we can communicate without profit.

• If we wish to help our neighbour we con employ our creative energies outside the economy by giving our work without profit.

• If we trust our neighbour we can share our facilities without profit.
  

• If we  want our neighbour's trust we can behave so that we earn it.
  

• If we feel like it we con have fun together.

This is our capital.

Let us invest it in ourselves in non-profit sharing with our neighbours.

We can.

N©                Lorien F31310