Dan Crow's article was interesting and I wonder if it is a trend in all University settings.
His article, so much like most "publish or perish" publications was more than a bit verbose, so I admit that I took to skimming it after about 5 paragraphs.
One very important thing that he seemed not to mention (unless I missed it), was the increasined dominance of Corporate Capitalist funding and its effect on the direction that research and teaching has taken, always extant but, particularly since the advent and momentum of the supply-side economic surge and debacle (i.e. Reaganomics, full-spead ahead (to destruction) Monetarism, Econometrics, etc.).
We now find ourselves in need of a radical fundamental paradigm shift with respect to an economy based on rational resource allocation rather than financial speculation, and with respect to restructuring our economic system to support the evolution to a inclusive, humane, equitable, quality of life, sustainable, peaceful one that employs a plan and implement modus operandi dedicated and committed to ecological economic redevelopment.
In Peace, Friendship, Cooperation, and Sustainability,
Mike Morin
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Civics 101
Yes, borders and Nazions and States are very arbitrary.
Capitalists don't respect them, unless they can use their military and police might to oppress us.
Here's a Civics question for thee all?
If the aristocratic so-called "founding fathers" who wrote the Declaration of Independence, then commissioned the gullible workers to kill and maim the English, and get killed and maimed themselves, also wrote the Constitution, why did they only give us a right to "peaceably assemble"?
Don't get me wrong. I'm a Friend, and I would love to see a non-violent resolution to the issues of the day and the future. But, the USA Government has been going way too far for way too long, probably from the very beginning.
Think about it. What is a State? It is a territory divied out by the Federal Government to very rich (need I mention genocidal) Capitalists.
The peace plan focuses on local neighborhoods as a locus, with inter-community, regional, inter-regional, worldaround unity and cooperation with ecological economic redevelopment based on the principles of peace, inclusion, equity, humanity, quality of life, and sustainability.
A true economic democracy.
In Peace, Friendship, Cooperation and Sustainability,
Mike Morin
Capitalists don't respect them, unless they can use their military and police might to oppress us.
Here's a Civics question for thee all?
If the aristocratic so-called "founding fathers" who wrote the Declaration of Independence, then commissioned the gullible workers to kill and maim the English, and get killed and maimed themselves, also wrote the Constitution, why did they only give us a right to "peaceably assemble"?
Don't get me wrong. I'm a Friend, and I would love to see a non-violent resolution to the issues of the day and the future. But, the USA Government has been going way too far for way too long, probably from the very beginning.
Think about it. What is a State? It is a territory divied out by the Federal Government to very rich (need I mention genocidal) Capitalists.
The peace plan focuses on local neighborhoods as a locus, with inter-community, regional, inter-regional, worldaround unity and cooperation with ecological economic redevelopment based on the principles of peace, inclusion, equity, humanity, quality of life, and sustainability.
A true economic democracy.
In Peace, Friendship, Cooperation and Sustainability,
Mike Morin
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Health Care Reform
No Mouse,
The biggest obstacle to having universal health care is the decades long and continued abuse by the medical industrial complex (very much including the pharmaceutical industry), and "health care" providers, both professional and institutional.
The only way to achieve health reform in the USA and worldwide is to a implement a single payer (combining private and public payers into one payment system with locally and regionally administered HMOs with Providers forming a non-profit Union contracting to scale back costs on the order of at least 35 to 40%.
A Medical Policy Board needs to be established with non-economically interested Doctors, who also understsnd the issues of abuse and fraud and over-competition (e.g. Nortin Hadler, Shannon Brownlee) and resources budgeted to communities under the aegis of a regional plan, which strongly emphasizes an environmental/public health/wellness plan.
Mike Morin
The biggest obstacle to having universal health care is the decades long and continued abuse by the medical industrial complex (very much including the pharmaceutical industry), and "health care" providers, both professional and institutional.
The only way to achieve health reform in the USA and worldwide is to a implement a single payer (combining private and public payers into one payment system with locally and regionally administered HMOs with Providers forming a non-profit Union contracting to scale back costs on the order of at least 35 to 40%.
A Medical Policy Board needs to be established with non-economically interested Doctors, who also understsnd the issues of abuse and fraud and over-competition (e.g. Nortin Hadler, Shannon Brownlee) and resources budgeted to communities under the aegis of a regional plan, which strongly emphasizes an environmental/public health/wellness plan.
Mike Morin
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Islam
The apparent contradiction of the rise of Islam (if it means Peace) with successive military (and now economic) victories and apostasies needs to be understood within the context of the real world. Muhammed and the Moslems certainly did not invent the concept of military aggression or economic hegemony. If we can accept the nobility of the faith, the degradation of conditions for the followers of Mohammed, and the ensuing persecution of the prophet and his followers (let me reiterate that a good leader inspires leadership in everyone else); then one may be able to understand the rise of Islam and its attractiveness to people within that context.
The concept of holy war (the sixth pillar of Islam to which not all Moslems ascribe) is counter-productive to our efforts for peace. But, what is reality, the Old Testament is rife with "Ywah's" exhortations and justifications for holy war. Even that good man Davids had to use violence to overthrow the opulent ostentasious priggish Goliath and the Philistines (the latter remind thee all of the modern day USAers?)
One only has to look at such historical examples of the Crusades and Manifest Destiny, as but a small sample of the history of human brutality associated with hypocritical religious "faith".
As Jesus was reputed to have said, "Let he who be without sin, cast the first stone.
Mike Morin
(aka Morehymmed Saddiq)
The concept of holy war (the sixth pillar of Islam to which not all Moslems ascribe) is counter-productive to our efforts for peace. But, what is reality, the Old Testament is rife with "Ywah's" exhortations and justifications for holy war. Even that good man Davids had to use violence to overthrow the opulent ostentasious priggish Goliath and the Philistines (the latter remind thee all of the modern day USAers?)
One only has to look at such historical examples of the Crusades and Manifest Destiny, as but a small sample of the history of human brutality associated with hypocritical religious "faith".
As Jesus was reputed to have said, "Let he who be without sin, cast the first stone.
Mike Morin
(aka Morehymmed Saddiq)
Friday, July 10, 2009
With Respect to the Ecosocialist Network
Thank you, Andrew, for the valuable post.
1.) With respect to the ecocidal nature of the Capitalist system, I think that it should be duly noted that the Capitalist system is genocidal too, and because it is ecocidal, suicidal as not so well.
2) With respect to the need for a socialist alternative, I, for one (and one for all), am dedicated and committed to developing, proposing, communicating, and in any other way possible working for the realization of such, maybe within our lifetimes.
3.) With respect to the finite planet and dwindling resources, it is absolutely essential and urgent that we communicate this reality, and conceptualize, develop, and implement planning policies and programs. Such should be community centered, and fundamentally based on economic democracy and fundamentally concerned with inter-community, inter-regional, and worldwide unity and cooperation. I am a mutualist and a libertarian cooperative communitarian socialist communist syndicalist. Such translates to the basic need to rearrange the ways in which we allocate resources to and within communities (Weisberg's model of the neighborhood as a mature ecological system) and within and among economic sectors.
Thank you for the position statements of the Communist and Socialist Parties of the USA. It is good to see their "green" perspective. We need to overcome factionalization in the world socialist movement. Also, we in the United States and the associated Capitalist interests need to recognize that we are the whale and the future of mankind and the planet is Jonah.
With respect to them and the Socialist International Party, do we all understand that the ideal transcends national or any other sort of divisive identifications? Of course, we have to deal with the reality of the status quo, but we should not encourage it.
Got a kick out of how the communist statement misinterpreted the word ecology as a synonym for environment. Let them know that ecology is from the Greek, "study of the home" and economy is from the Greek, "management of the home".
Should EIN be a global coalition builder?
Of course, WE ALL should be global coalition builders.
The Belem Declaration should be communicated, but a petition concept is silly. The Belem Declaration should take its place alongside Jeremy Rifkin's Declaration of Interdependence, the Ten Key Values of the Green Party, the seven basic principles of the International Cooperative Alliance, and the Earth Charter. Anybuddy care to add others? I, for one (and one for all) have an open mind.
Like stated previously, the EIN, and ideally all people should work to facilitate the understanding necessary to make the transition to a peaceful, inclusive, equitable, humane, quality of life oriented, sustainable world.
Thank you.
I hope that we can work together to achieve world unity and world cooperation.
Mike Morin
Jefferson Westside Neighborhood
Willamette Valley Watershed
"Pacific NW" of the North American Continent
Finite Planet Earth
Solar System
Infinite Universe
1.) With respect to the ecocidal nature of the Capitalist system, I think that it should be duly noted that the Capitalist system is genocidal too, and because it is ecocidal, suicidal as not so well.
2) With respect to the need for a socialist alternative, I, for one (and one for all), am dedicated and committed to developing, proposing, communicating, and in any other way possible working for the realization of such, maybe within our lifetimes.
3.) With respect to the finite planet and dwindling resources, it is absolutely essential and urgent that we communicate this reality, and conceptualize, develop, and implement planning policies and programs. Such should be community centered, and fundamentally based on economic democracy and fundamentally concerned with inter-community, inter-regional, and worldwide unity and cooperation. I am a mutualist and a libertarian cooperative communitarian socialist communist syndicalist. Such translates to the basic need to rearrange the ways in which we allocate resources to and within communities (Weisberg's model of the neighborhood as a mature ecological system) and within and among economic sectors.
Thank you for the position statements of the Communist and Socialist Parties of the USA. It is good to see their "green" perspective. We need to overcome factionalization in the world socialist movement. Also, we in the United States and the associated Capitalist interests need to recognize that we are the whale and the future of mankind and the planet is Jonah.
With respect to them and the Socialist International Party, do we all understand that the ideal transcends national or any other sort of divisive identifications? Of course, we have to deal with the reality of the status quo, but we should not encourage it.
Got a kick out of how the communist statement misinterpreted the word ecology as a synonym for environment. Let them know that ecology is from the Greek, "study of the home" and economy is from the Greek, "management of the home".
Should EIN be a global coalition builder?
Of course, WE ALL should be global coalition builders.
The Belem Declaration should be communicated, but a petition concept is silly. The Belem Declaration should take its place alongside Jeremy Rifkin's Declaration of Interdependence, the Ten Key Values of the Green Party, the seven basic principles of the International Cooperative Alliance, and the Earth Charter. Anybuddy care to add others? I, for one (and one for all) have an open mind.
Like stated previously, the EIN, and ideally all people should work to facilitate the understanding necessary to make the transition to a peaceful, inclusive, equitable, humane, quality of life oriented, sustainable world.
Thank you.
I hope that we can work together to achieve world unity and world cooperation.
Mike Morin
Jefferson Westside Neighborhood
Willamette Valley Watershed
"Pacific NW" of the North American Continent
Finite Planet Earth
Solar System
Infinite Universe
Monday, July 6, 2009
His Name is Muhammad Yunus
April,
His name is Muhammad Yunus. He is the founder of something called the Grameen Bank.
I just got his book: Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty at the Library.
I have heard of this initiative. I have some pre-conceived notions.
1.) He is a Muslim, so he does not charge interest on his loans. It will be interesting how he supports himself and the Grameen Bank. Does he charge fees? Does he share profit? Does he have wealthy benefactors?
2.) I assume that he functions in the so-called free-market. If so, do the businesses he loans to function to meet specific needs of the local poor communities and what happens when those needs are met? If that is the way they function, I suspect that they identify other needs.
That's all I want to say for now, until after I read the book.
Suggest you read it as well. Then perhaps, we can discuss.
Thanks for alerting me to this.
Mike Morin
His name is Muhammad Yunus. He is the founder of something called the Grameen Bank.
I just got his book: Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty at the Library.
I have heard of this initiative. I have some pre-conceived notions.
1.) He is a Muslim, so he does not charge interest on his loans. It will be interesting how he supports himself and the Grameen Bank. Does he charge fees? Does he share profit? Does he have wealthy benefactors?
2.) I assume that he functions in the so-called free-market. If so, do the businesses he loans to function to meet specific needs of the local poor communities and what happens when those needs are met? If that is the way they function, I suspect that they identify other needs.
That's all I want to say for now, until after I read the book.
Suggest you read it as well. Then perhaps, we can discuss.
Thanks for alerting me to this.
Mike Morin
A Plan for Socialism
>Robin wrote:
The idea that you can challenge capitalism by starting up businesses oneself is about as plausible as wanting to strike a blow for pacifism by joining the army.
Mike Morin replies:
This leaves us between a rock and a hard place.
The only ones who can start businesses in today's Capitalist environments are well endowed individuals and/or Corporate Capitalists who are diversified and can afford to take a loss in the new sector in the short run with the (illusory) hopes that the economic system will "recover". It won't. So what we have is a lot of irrational dysfunctional Capitalist businesses running their course and withering away. It is our remote hope that we can transition to something better before the world is totally destitute.
It is my pipe dream that we can enlist the holders of equity and assets to reallocate their holdings not to businesses but to community betterment organizations and or workers' cooperative (or as in rare cases functioning within the Capitalist systems community/worker hybrids). But we must do more than that we must organize the workers in socialist solidarity within and among communities, regions, and world wide. We must organize workers within and among economic sectors.
There needs to be democratic ecological economic planning to radically alter the way in which resources are allocated to and within communities and within and among economic sectors.My dream seems to be consistent with the orientation, plans and programs of the Latin American leaders of ALBA (Latin American Bolivarian Alliance). Hugo Chavez and associates have been using oil wealth and other equity and assets to finance such programs and there appears to have been some hopeful success thus far.
Where we are at significant disadvantage in the English speaking world is that our resource holders, Capitalists and Capitalist lackey Governments are not hip to this plan.
>Robin wrote:
It is only by engaging in and helping to expand activities that transcend commodity-productio n and by pushing forward with a clear vision of a future ouside capitalism that you stand any chance of actually realising that future.
The idea that you can challenge capitalism by starting up businesses oneself is about as plausible as wanting to strike a blow for pacifism by joining the army.
Mike Morin replies:
This leaves us between a rock and a hard place.
The only ones who can start businesses in today's Capitalist environments are well endowed individuals and/or Corporate Capitalists who are diversified and can afford to take a loss in the new sector in the short run with the (illusory) hopes that the economic system will "recover". It won't. So what we have is a lot of irrational dysfunctional Capitalist businesses running their course and withering away. It is our remote hope that we can transition to something better before the world is totally destitute.
It is my pipe dream that we can enlist the holders of equity and assets to reallocate their holdings not to businesses but to community betterment organizations and or workers' cooperative (or as in rare cases functioning within the Capitalist systems community/worker hybrids). But we must do more than that we must organize the workers in socialist solidarity within and among communities, regions, and world wide. We must organize workers within and among economic sectors.
There needs to be democratic ecological economic planning to radically alter the way in which resources are allocated to and within communities and within and among economic sectors.My dream seems to be consistent with the orientation, plans and programs of the Latin American leaders of ALBA (Latin American Bolivarian Alliance). Hugo Chavez and associates have been using oil wealth and other equity and assets to finance such programs and there appears to have been some hopeful success thus far.
Where we are at significant disadvantage in the English speaking world is that our resource holders, Capitalists and Capitalist lackey Governments are not hip to this plan.
>Robin wrote:
It is only by engaging in and helping to expand activities that transcend commodity-productio n and by pushing forward with a clear vision of a future ouside capitalism that you stand any chance of actually realising that future.
Socialism is Big Government?
No, I don't advocate big government. I advocate self-government, with limited governments that primarily fosters and facilitates a transition to a community/syndicalist economic democracy of the people based on neighborhood/inter-community/inter-regional and worldwide organization and cooperation.
Until we have a change in the Capitalist controlled government and media, it will be a constant struggle against propaganda to consume more for the "good" of the economy. Folks like us, have changed our lifestyles, and I have personally "been the change I want to see in the world" for many years. But it is going to take more than that.
We are the Davids in the David vs. Goliaths struggle, and the Capitalists and their minions are the Goliaths. We are the Jonahs and the Capitalist system is the whale.
As the Capitalist system, predicated on maximizing infinite growth, continues to fail, we need to do more than garden. We will need to pick up the pieces and rearrange them to serve the needs of people.
Mike Morin
Until we have a change in the Capitalist controlled government and media, it will be a constant struggle against propaganda to consume more for the "good" of the economy. Folks like us, have changed our lifestyles, and I have personally "been the change I want to see in the world" for many years. But it is going to take more than that.
We are the Davids in the David vs. Goliaths struggle, and the Capitalists and their minions are the Goliaths. We are the Jonahs and the Capitalist system is the whale.
As the Capitalist system, predicated on maximizing infinite growth, continues to fail, we need to do more than garden. We will need to pick up the pieces and rearrange them to serve the needs of people.
Mike Morin
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Apathy Towards Socialism
Lenny,
I think (y)our problem is that we are in the United States.
If we lived in Latin America, we might see the acceptance and embracing of socialism as a fairly successful and growing phenomonon.
Apathy and silence is complicity with the Imperialist War Crimes of the United States Government. It is hard to guage what people are thinking about the failure of the economy here (in the US) and the workers devaluation to third world conditions while the Capitalists carry on their First World lifestyles.
The media keeps us preoccupied with irrelevancies and commercial and political propaganda. The media tells us what to think. It suits the Capitalists to believe it. The "workers' either ignore it and adopt a hedonistic outlook on life and/or they dread over it. I think. It's hard to guage how many of the "workers" are suffering and how many of them are Capitalists clinging to their financial competitive advantage.
Mike Morin
I think (y)our problem is that we are in the United States.
If we lived in Latin America, we might see the acceptance and embracing of socialism as a fairly successful and growing phenomonon.
Apathy and silence is complicity with the Imperialist War Crimes of the United States Government. It is hard to guage what people are thinking about the failure of the economy here (in the US) and the workers devaluation to third world conditions while the Capitalists carry on their First World lifestyles.
The media keeps us preoccupied with irrelevancies and commercial and political propaganda. The media tells us what to think. It suits the Capitalists to believe it. The "workers' either ignore it and adopt a hedonistic outlook on life and/or they dread over it. I think. It's hard to guage how many of the "workers" are suffering and how many of them are Capitalists clinging to their financial competitive advantage.
Mike Morin
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Sprawl
Sprawl is the word.
Sprawl is associated directly with the development, improvement, diffusion, and direct sales and use of the personal automobile and its concomitant (and enabling) growth of the petroleum resource and industry.
According to James Howard Kunstler http://www.kunstler.com/Mags_Bruegmann.html , "sprawl was an emergent, self-organizing system made possible only by lavish and exorbitant supplies of cheap fossil fuels". Kunstler estimates that 80% of everything ever built in the United States has been built according to the sprawl pattern.
You astutely note that 1950 seems to be an approximate turning point for a form of more entropic, less dense, (more automobile oriented) sprawl. Continuing improvements in fossil fuel exploration science and technology, drilling and refining, and applications technologies had the United States awash in fossil fuel oil by WWII and after. The perceived endless domestic supply of approximately 1950 combined with a worldwide expansion in discoveries and production led Eisenhower to implement import quotas in the late 1950s.
A byproduct of the crude oil refining process is asphalt. As the oil industry grew along with the automobile industry in the early 1900s, so did the distribution network of fuels, filling and service stations, and the economic impetus to pave, pave, pave. A definite turning point in the sprawl/automobile culture was the National Highway Act of 1950, which imposed Federal gasoline fees to finance the Federal Interstate Highway system.
Ironically, about this time, a petroleum geologist named M. King Hubbert was mapping the history of exploration, discovery, and production in the lower 48 states and discovered a pattern which led him to predict that the production of domestic oil would peak in the early 1970s. He was mostly scoffed at, ridiculed, and ignored until his predictions came true in the 1970s. Petroleum Geologists, worldwide, have accepted Hubbert's methodology and applied it to worldwide oil (and natural gas) resources and have almost consensually concluded that worldwide oil and gas production has peaked about 2005 or at the very latest 2015. Most known, exploitable reserve fields, worldwide, are already past their peak production capabilities.
"Between 1948 and 1972, consumption in the U.S. grew from 5.8 to 16.4 million barrels per day. While significant, this three-fold increase was greatly surpassed by societies in other parts of the world: Western Europe's use of petroleum grew sixteen-fold and Japan's 137-fold. This global increase in fuel consumption was tied to the automobile; worldwide automobile ownership rose from 18.9 million in 1949 to 161 million in 1972. The United State's contribution to this growth was significant—an increase from 45 million to 119 million in little more than two decades."
(http://www.eoearth.org/article/Petroleum_history,_United_States#Further_Reading).
With regards to automobile-centric sprawl, I echo Kunstler warning as I quote him: "all the existing stuff built according to the pattern of sprawl ... will drastically lose its usefulness and its relative "market" value. What's more, the discontinuities to come in the global energy picture will pose challenges so severe to industrial society that we will be lucky to salvage anything resembling civilized life altogether."
That is why, I strongly recommend that we do everything within our human capabilities to educate, advocate, and implement a concerted rebuilding plan committed to reducing automobile usage by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years and begin implementing such a fossil fuel demand side management program and economic supply side reallocation plan almost immediately, if we are to have any hope, whatsoever, of avoiding the greatest extinction of life, particularly the human sort in the next 50 to 100 years.
Mike Morin
Eugene, OR
Sprawl is associated directly with the development, improvement, diffusion, and direct sales and use of the personal automobile and its concomitant (and enabling) growth of the petroleum resource and industry.
According to James Howard Kunstler http://www.kunstler.com/Mags_Bruegmann.html , "sprawl was an emergent, self-organizing system made possible only by lavish and exorbitant supplies of cheap fossil fuels". Kunstler estimates that 80% of everything ever built in the United States has been built according to the sprawl pattern.
You astutely note that 1950 seems to be an approximate turning point for a form of more entropic, less dense, (more automobile oriented) sprawl. Continuing improvements in fossil fuel exploration science and technology, drilling and refining, and applications technologies had the United States awash in fossil fuel oil by WWII and after. The perceived endless domestic supply of approximately 1950 combined with a worldwide expansion in discoveries and production led Eisenhower to implement import quotas in the late 1950s.
A byproduct of the crude oil refining process is asphalt. As the oil industry grew along with the automobile industry in the early 1900s, so did the distribution network of fuels, filling and service stations, and the economic impetus to pave, pave, pave. A definite turning point in the sprawl/automobile culture was the National Highway Act of 1950, which imposed Federal gasoline fees to finance the Federal Interstate Highway system.
Ironically, about this time, a petroleum geologist named M. King Hubbert was mapping the history of exploration, discovery, and production in the lower 48 states and discovered a pattern which led him to predict that the production of domestic oil would peak in the early 1970s. He was mostly scoffed at, ridiculed, and ignored until his predictions came true in the 1970s. Petroleum Geologists, worldwide, have accepted Hubbert's methodology and applied it to worldwide oil (and natural gas) resources and have almost consensually concluded that worldwide oil and gas production has peaked about 2005 or at the very latest 2015. Most known, exploitable reserve fields, worldwide, are already past their peak production capabilities.
"Between 1948 and 1972, consumption in the U.S. grew from 5.8 to 16.4 million barrels per day. While significant, this three-fold increase was greatly surpassed by societies in other parts of the world: Western Europe's use of petroleum grew sixteen-fold and Japan's 137-fold. This global increase in fuel consumption was tied to the automobile; worldwide automobile ownership rose from 18.9 million in 1949 to 161 million in 1972. The United State's contribution to this growth was significant—an increase from 45 million to 119 million in little more than two decades."
(http://www.eoearth.org/article/Petroleum_history,_United_States#Further_Reading).
With regards to automobile-centric sprawl, I echo Kunstler warning as I quote him: "all the existing stuff built according to the pattern of sprawl ... will drastically lose its usefulness and its relative "market" value. What's more, the discontinuities to come in the global energy picture will pose challenges so severe to industrial society that we will be lucky to salvage anything resembling civilized life altogether."
That is why, I strongly recommend that we do everything within our human capabilities to educate, advocate, and implement a concerted rebuilding plan committed to reducing automobile usage by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years and begin implementing such a fossil fuel demand side management program and economic supply side reallocation plan almost immediately, if we are to have any hope, whatsoever, of avoiding the greatest extinction of life, particularly the human sort in the next 50 to 100 years.
Mike Morin
Eugene, OR
Perspective
Robert Owen had an idea for a World Union called "the Association of All Classes of All Nations". I thought that was interesting because although he ascribed to and espouted the labor theory of value, he was very much a Capitalist businessman, although a very noble community and Parliamentary reformer for his time.
No doubt the gap between theory (labour theory of value) and practice (he always took a return to capital in his business operations) was by necessity. We do have to function in the real world and we do have to compromise our ideals to make available improvements in the conditions of the poor and working poor. That would be the line of the reformer. Some of Owen's motivation for reform was that he was scared for all about the prospects of revolution.
William Morris was pure Utopian. Read his book, "News from Nowhere" (1890), and that will be plain to see...
The two me were from different eras Owen (1771-1858) was a leading reformer and preceeded Marx and the blossoming of Socialism (the Communist Manifesto was published in 1848. Morris was born in 1834. He was an artist and "declared for "Socialism" in 1883, as socialism was beginning to steamroll as a popular belief set and was becoming increasingly viewed as a viable and desirable alternative to Capitalism.
Both Owen and Morris longed for a return to simpler times that preceeded the harsh working and living conditions that accompanied the industrial revolution.
Owen, being a businessman and proprieter seeked to actively promote and install more humane conditions in the factories and factory towns. Morris, being an artist from the upper middle class seeked to revive and spread (humane) craftsmanship in an era when it was being lost.
The relevance of the work of these two men, as the relevance of the work of all men, is hard to see among the ruins of industrial Capitalism and consumerism fundamentally and terribly over-fueled by the advent, overshoot, and decline of the fossil fuel age.
If we have hope for the children and their progeny, then these two men are important teachers. I, for one, have resigned myself to the conceptualization that we are in the beginning of what is often referred to as a post-modern age. That is, as a matter of understatement, we are in the decline phase of "civilization", if not human life. One can hope (as one can hope for anything), that whatever, if anything, rises from the ashes and despoilation of modern man, that it be enlightened. News from Nowhere and the basic tenets of the WSM are good places to start.
Perspective.
Mike Morin
No doubt the gap between theory (labour theory of value) and practice (he always took a return to capital in his business operations) was by necessity. We do have to function in the real world and we do have to compromise our ideals to make available improvements in the conditions of the poor and working poor. That would be the line of the reformer. Some of Owen's motivation for reform was that he was scared for all about the prospects of revolution.
William Morris was pure Utopian. Read his book, "News from Nowhere" (1890), and that will be plain to see...
The two me were from different eras Owen (1771-1858) was a leading reformer and preceeded Marx and the blossoming of Socialism (the Communist Manifesto was published in 1848. Morris was born in 1834. He was an artist and "declared for "Socialism" in 1883, as socialism was beginning to steamroll as a popular belief set and was becoming increasingly viewed as a viable and desirable alternative to Capitalism.
Both Owen and Morris longed for a return to simpler times that preceeded the harsh working and living conditions that accompanied the industrial revolution.
Owen, being a businessman and proprieter seeked to actively promote and install more humane conditions in the factories and factory towns. Morris, being an artist from the upper middle class seeked to revive and spread (humane) craftsmanship in an era when it was being lost.
The relevance of the work of these two men, as the relevance of the work of all men, is hard to see among the ruins of industrial Capitalism and consumerism fundamentally and terribly over-fueled by the advent, overshoot, and decline of the fossil fuel age.
If we have hope for the children and their progeny, then these two men are important teachers. I, for one, have resigned myself to the conceptualization that we are in the beginning of what is often referred to as a post-modern age. That is, as a matter of understatement, we are in the decline phase of "civilization", if not human life. One can hope (as one can hope for anything), that whatever, if anything, rises from the ashes and despoilation of modern man, that it be enlightened. News from Nowhere and the basic tenets of the WSM are good places to start.
Perspective.
Mike Morin
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