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devel-simplicity [2017/09/14 15:58]
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devel-simplicity [2017/09/20 14:46]
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-===== The Natural Order Re-Established ​=====+===== Development vs Simplicity ​=====
  
-Little by little ​the natural order was re-establishing itself ​on earth. In the agricultural countries ​of the South, the peasants had taken back the good lands expropriated by invaders ​and used to cultivate luxury products for export to rich countriesThese export commodities —coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, bananas, spices – had been produced by the labor of impoverished natives reduced ​to semi-slaveryTheir children had ended up in horrible favelasbidonvilles,​ slums and urban projects where they lived on garbageIn the name of “free markets,” rich monopolies had ruined peasant markets by flooding them with produce at the lowest prices. That unfair competition was subsidized by the “democratic” governments that offered gross subsidies ​to big agro-business enterprises.+As various projects were discussed in neighborhood assemblies and collectives,  ​the debates generally turned around the choice between plans considered "​productivist"​ and more conservative plans that put the emphasis ​on the reduction ​of work time and minimal environmental impactSome Utopians argued in favor of a greater immediate effort ​to construct infrastructures that would make life easier or safer in the futureFor exemple a crash program using carbon-based production methods to rapidly construct windsolar and other sustainable energy sources that would replace them permanantlyOthers opted for a slower rate of accumulation,​ a simpler life, the least impact on nature, ​the liberty ​to dispose of their own time.
  
-In Africa, threre are museums devoted ​to the chocolate childrenPathetic hutschild drawingsphotographs and recorded interviews bear witness to a common early 21st Century practice. It was a memorial of the sufferings of parents too poor to feed their own children who ended up selling them to manpower merchants and never seeing ​them again These merchants sold them to cocoa cultivators who starved them while making them work endless hours picking cocoa  to fulfull contracts with the multinationalsCompanies like Nestlé resold these chocolates to children in industrial countries at prices twenty to a hundred times the cost of productionInterviews revealed that none of these children ​had ever seen, much less tasted a chocolate bar.+Groups of citizens with projects ​to propose could also ask the 'plan factories'​ to prepare estimates and technically feasible plansBy this process, each consumereach workereach local community could clearly see the choices that suited ​them bestIn practice, ​the great diversity of societies simplified thingsCertain regions opted for greater productivity,​ others for greater simplicity. As long as the basic needs of the environment and the rights of neighbors were respected, there was no problemThe dissatisfied always ​had the option joining other communities better suited to their ideals and their lifestyles.
  
-During the planetary Emergencethese poor peasants of AfricaLatin America, and Asia organized and struggled to take back their traditional landsTheir first goal was to become ​ self-sufficient nutritionally ​by planting traditional subsistence cropsAt the same time on part of the landthey  continued to farm the sugar, cocoa, coffee, spices ​and other commodities that city workers like to eatto use for tradeWomen had long provided the labor and commercial savvy for agriculture in Africaand now their energy and experience was united as they took the initiative long monopolized by male profiteers and armed thugs.+Participatory democracy was not limited to geographical conscriptions. People were also associated in networks and assemblies as consumersparentsworkers, and in all aspect of their multiple identitiesAssemblies tried to come to conclusions ​by consensus, but if a consensus could not be reached, a majority decision might be called forEven thenif the minority were large and resolutethe decision might be put off or imposed ​for a limited period onlyIn any caseall decisions were periodically reviewed. If a plan caused negative or unforeseen results, it could be changed or even withdrawn.
  
-Regular trade or barter was re-established spontaneously from the very beginning of the reconstruction period. Sailors and aircrew who brought emergency relief and the technical aid for things like irrigation and communication,​ didn’t return home with their planes and boats empty. They filled them with good things for workers of the world’s metropoles. Railroaders,​ truckers, sailors and aviation crews had played a primordial role by bringing aid. After medication and food came tools with teams of aid-workers and technicians working in cooperation with local assemblies. They helped the peasants dig wells, construct cisterns and irrigate. They helped push back the hunger, thirst, and diarrhoea that had for so long tortured the Billions in the south of the planet.  +[[natural-order|The Natural Order Re-Established]]
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-Thus the natural rapport between city and country was re-established almost spontaneously in outbursts of solidarity, mutual help and cooperation. For the first time in five imperialist centuries, nobody was dying of hunger either in the rich fields of the earth or in the slums of great opulent cities. +
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-[[Transportation]]+
devel-simplicity.txt · Last modified: 2017/09/20 14:46 by admin