RE: Whales vs Minnows, Acceptance, Gratitude, Humility What Truly Matters in Life?
Welcome! You and I share many interests! Gardening, voluntary simplicity, chickens (don't have them anymore, tho) and you are the first person I've met living in an earth ship! I have three volumes of old earth ship books from the 70s. But I would disagree with you that our society operates under a capitalist economic system. First of all, I agree, our society's system is gobbling up resources at an unnecessarily high rate. But it's not capitalism's fault. Our economic system is a corporatist one, and economists have been advising government for decades to encourage consumption (thus the high rate of resource gobbling). That encouragement comes through legislation and the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. I'm guessing that, like me, you're not fond of the corporations that rule and drain our economy and resources, but again, those corporations don't operate in any environment that would resemble capitalism. They lack meaningful competition because of government protections, and they remain entrenched with help from those same pro-consumption policies. Here on Steemit, although the platform is decentralized and we have dependable price signals, there is still an oligarch (whale) problem. But if true "capitalism" is allowed to flourish here, competition will solve that problem. Time will tell. I hope you enjoy it here! Love your house. :)
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Back when we were deciding what kind of house to build, 1990, tire houses were on the list and we decided to go down to New Mexico and take a week end class from the brains behind Earthships, Michael Reynolds. It was outrageously fun and we learned so much from him. Pounded dirt into tires, put mud on walls and laid some can and bottle walls too with 20 other open minded folks ready to build with tires and dirt for themselves. Reynolds is an amazing man, so devoted to building with trash and giving people the skills and knowledge needed to cut the umbilical cord with the energy and banking interests of today. 50 years he has been experimenting and teaching others, a truly feel honored that I had a little bit of time to learn from him and be encouraged to follow a path less taken, like we ultimately did. I never have regretted the decision to move to the sticks and build our home and tribe. We have had to live with less stuff and we are more likely to repair a 30 or 40 year old vehicle then buy something new, etc. But my goodness our life now in our 6th and 7th decades, is so fun and sweet and shared with people we love, care and laugh with, the only thing we lack is the illusion of financial security. There aren't to many pension plans for organic gardening, hen herding, mmj loving old hippies in the hills...... but the Mother and our luck and actions seems to always be providing what we need, so........ you live in the now, and trust in the universal energy flow.......
Take good care fellow cultural creative..... oc