Extinctions, The Economy and American Politics - Part II

Part II


So how do we accelerate change, not in the global environment, but within the human community?
Here's how we might begin:

First: In democracies there should be an absolute litmus test in electoral politics. Politicians in the hands of commerce or finance be driven from office, regardless of the stance on other issues. Commerce and finance should lose the growing franchise they have been granted in most Western democracies. Corporations must lose the the legal fiction that defines them as persons, with rights to engage in politics and debate, and which, to the ultimate detriment of all, allows them to sway, influence or even buy our democracy.

Second: Individuals citizens need education in the basics of the sciences, as well as logic, in order to understand the gravity of the situation, and perhaps more importantly, to be secure in participating in a meaningful debate as to the best paths forward. It also means a thorough revaluation of the right of ownership.

Third: We need to thoroughly reevaluate the right of ownership. In Western democracies the right of ownership has never been been absolute. We are limited from ownership of many dangerous materials, ranging from weapons to chemicals. There are plants we're not allowed to grow in our gardens, some being deemed dangerous, others because they are understood to play a role in the spread of disease to important crops or forests. Likewise, one may not construct a bomb, even though one might have a right to own all the components needed, nor are ownership right allowed which trump many dangers to the larger community. This can range from restrictions on mining and minimum height requirements and scrubbers on industrial chimneys to safety requirements for public accommodations. Thus in most western nations limits have been placed the use and ownership of real property, such that common actions which are likely damaging to others are constrained. Limitations are often placed on the types of buildings permitted, or indeed if building is allowed at all. Requirements exist as to materials and design with safety as a principle justification, though zoning laws often factor potential impact on the value of nearby properties and even community standards of decorum or aesthetics into potential uses, tied to code requirements for setbacks, exterior materials and the design of access. In recent decades large segments of construction have codes requiring consideration of the disabled in design and construction.

The pseudo-populist movements concerned with land rights, whether in the form of anti-eminent domain groups, anti-zoning groups or Western grazing rights groups have been quietly applauded and underwritten by commerce and finance, which has manipulated politics to link such concerns with their own privileges to sell and manufacture "as they like, when and how they like." The propaganda buzzword beloved of finance and commerce is “deregulation.” Its proponents ignore the fundamental fact that regulation designed to protect the populace from harm is the only means to to avert harm on massive, perhaps life denying scales.

What's missing from many of these fronts for the interests of commerce and finance is an ancient notion of the "common good."  One way to express this attitude is to redevelop a language of common ownership.  Public land is not "government land," but land which is held by all for the good of all. Vast swathes of western America currently owned by the "government," are held legally held as as if no more than trusts for the commerce. So-called "national forests" are designed to guarantee access by commerce to cheap wood supplies. Preservation of these great forests, and their integrity as complex living ecologies stands a distant second place to the interests of finance and commerce.

For several generations the American people have been force fed a paradigm that services commerce, but not the people: the notion that private home ownership is the best and most economically beneficial approach to housing for most people, when the facts, freed from the interest of commerce and finance simply do not support this proposition. The single best form of housing most people in urban and suburban areas is collective ownership. This means cooperatives, not condominiums or public housing. Condos are rapidly and often justly developing a reputation as shoddily constructed "entry level" housing that often rapidly lose value after initial sale. Co-ops, while relatively rare in American markets, offer, when reasonably regulated against abuses, a form of common ownership that inculcates both personal and collective responsibility. While condo fees are often seen as little more than taxation, co-op membership can be structured to inform and develop community. In urban areas co-ops have been developed for visual artists, dance communities, musicians and their families, and many other natural affinity groups. It takes careful regulation to prevent some co-ops from becoming bastions of the antisocial, with existing members seeking to exclude "undesirables." but this can be easily prevented by substantial transparency requirements.

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