Squeers, "Sorry, but all you're offering is syllogistic rather than dialectical thought." No-one has ever accused me of that before. I am not sure what to think!

Grim, "Rising fuel prices and carbon taxes will impose the need for local production, as Gilbert requires."

It is true that fuel and carbon prices will encourage us to localize. Unfortunately, it will not necesarily encourage us to establish the appropriate social infrastructure etc. In short, unless we steer the ship, we will not be pushed where we want to go.

With this in mind, as well as carbon and other resource use and pollution taxes, let us also have things like local cash currencies, trade tariffs on things not purchased locally, incentives to share and cooperate with neighbours, (as an example of a reform, we could legislate to allow neighbourhood bodies to manage rental houses in their area if they would like to), etc.

Gilbert Holmes wrote: David f, "You don't justify atrocities to produce eventual pie in the sky." Personally I think that you should say sorry for this smudge on my character. You were upset when I said you were ignorant, while you are inferring that I am some kind of closet war criminal."

Dear Gilbert Holmes,

I was referring to those who make apologies for the crimes of Lenin and the other Marxist criminals. To the best of my knowledge you have not done so, and I was not referring to you. I don't think and did not mean to imply that you were any sort of war or other criminal.

I had not meant to post further because the discussion has devolved into an unpleasant slanging match. However, set your mind at ease. As far as I know your character is irreproachable.

Actually, my ignorance is boundless.

> I was referring to those who make apologies for the crimes
> of Lenin and the other Marxist criminals.

You know, you can SAY that about great revolutionary heroes like Lenin -- but I wonder what your lot will be saying and doing when we put the whole passel of your surviving arch-criminal bourgeois leadership on trial for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in the future... It's too bad we can't get to ALL the capitalist war criminals and slavers -- like just about every U.S. president, from George Washington on down -- who already lie in their plush mausolea; but we can and will certainly put their _posterity_ on trial. Because we will be writing the Future's history books (or their electronic equivalent).

As the saying goes, david f: 'He who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones'...

> It is true that fuel and carbon prices will encourage us to localize.
> Unfortunately, it will not necesarily encourage us to establish the
> appropriate social infrastructure etc. In short, unless we steer the
> ship, we will not be pushed where we want to go.

And how do you propose to take control of this 'ship of state' from its present -- murderous and armed-to-the-teeth -- pirate crew? By 'voting' them off the bridge? Moral suasion, perhaps? Bribery? Trickery..?

> With this in mind, as well as carbon and other resource use and
> pollution taxes, let us also have things like local cash currencies,
> trade tariffs on things not purchased locally, incentives to share and
> cooperate with neighbours, (as an example of a reform, we could
> legislate to allow neighbourhood bodies to manage rental houses in
> their area if they would like to), etc.

While this hippie-dippy "Small is Beautiful" stuff continues to go over well with the still-comfortable (but not for long) and reformist liberals and petit-bourgeois Left, the fact remains that only world-wide organization of the world's resources under a socialist federation of workers & farmers states could possibly make the transition to a 'sustainable' 'world-class' lifestyle enjoyed by *every* human being on the planet.

"Growing your own" just won't cut it, I'm afraid.
Talk about utopian.

Excuse me. I have to go out and plow the 'back 40' with my mule...

The larger the organisation, the greater the gap between those at the top, and those at the bottom. This isn't theory, this is observable fact. There should be nothing more frightening to any thinking person than a single world encompassing organisation; whether it be a world government, or an oligarchy of global corporations.
Just as we have (largely) come to accept that nature's way of NOT putting all the eggs in one basket (diversity) is the best way to avoid extinction, so we should now have the maturity to accept the need for economic diversity also. So long as people are individuals, with different wants, desires and needs, no shoe will ever be found that fits all.
Viva la difference.
Squeers, you are right in regard to my 'summary'. It was more a very brief summary of my thoughts, than of my posts (on this thread). As to the signs of reform, I agree with your analysis that the world is in crisis, and changes will occur. That laissez faire Capitalism is collapsing at the same time as Humanity is achieving an unprecedented awareness of eco-fragility is interesting.
But what I see most of all is the breakdown of large institutions (like governments imposed, with no regard for local ethnicity or culture) into smaller ones. Even the EU is showing signs of fracture.
What is most vital today and tomorrow is not which side of the political debate wins, but that we recognise that war itself is the enemy; and that just because the community next door is 'different', does not give anyone the right to force them to conform.
The most efficient machine is the one which is neither seen nor heard, but just does what it is supposed to do. This is what all Libertarians wish for in their governments.
Where we differ, is in the RW belief that markets -the very home of corruption- can ever be self regulating, with no rule of Law.
This is very much to "ignore human nature at your peril".

Dear Gilbert Holmes,

Have you read E.F. Schumarcher's classic "Small is "BeautifuL"? (Grok reminded me of it with his "hippy dippy" reference).
The blurb on the back says: "Dr Schumacher maintains that Man's current pursuit of profit and progress, which promotes giant organizations and increased specialisation, has if fact resulted in gross economic inefficiency, environmental pollution and inhumane working conditions.
Dr Schumacher challenges the doctrine of economic, technological and scientific specialisation and proposes a system of Intermediate Technology, based on smaller working units, communal ownership and regional workplaces utilising local labour and resources."
Sounds right up your alley, don't you think? It was first printed in 1973, but obviously still relevant.

Dear Yabby,

I remember reading somewhere recently that the population in India didn't really explode until after colonisation...can't remember where I read it, but will keep hunting and try and find the piece. Also read (In Niall Ferguson's, "Empire") how that around the year 1700, India controlled about 25 percent of total world output, while Britain was more like a parasite on the periphery,...a reminder of how things can alter...Ferguson writes: "The idea that Britain might one day rule India would have struck a visitor to New Delhi in the late seventeenth century as preposterous."