Excerpts and Notes

Escaping The Matrix by Richard Moore

Selected excerpts from Escaping The Matrix: how We the People can change the world:

As I suggested in the foreword to this book, our problems as a society are all interconnected: we can't deal  with them piecemeal.  Economics cannot be addressed in isolation.  We need to look at things in a broader context, a context in which there are more dynamic forces operating, and in which it is possible to find some kind of overall balance.

The conclusion I have reached -- and I'll be expanding on this in the rest of the book -- is that culture is the context we need to be looking at.  Culture is the container, the system, in which politics, economics, and social relationships generally, all interact with one another.  If we want to change our societies in any significant way, we need to make changes at the level of culture.

...The fact is that capitalism is not really an economic philosophy at all; rather it is a political philosophy.  Capitalism is basically the belief that those who have the most spare money -- the most capital -- should decide how our societies develop. [p.54]

The Populist Movement arose due to economic problems that were being faced by farmers, and the movement set out to find practical ways to solve those problems.  if a movement makes demands, then it is affirming that power resides elsewhere -- in that person or agency which is the target of the demands.  If a movement creates solutions, then it is asserting its own welfare.  The emphasis on economics in particular is also appropriate to a transformational movement.  Economics is the basis of most social activity, and it is in the realm of economics that solutions can be found to our social and environmental malaise. [p.89]

The problem with rail, from the perspective of capitalism, is that it is too efficient: it doesn't use up enough resources to generate maximum economic growth.  Hence trillions of dollars are invested by governments in ultra-expensive highway systems, artificially subsidizing automobile  and truck usage, while rail systems are dismantled and service is intentionally allowed to deteriorate....What makes no sense in common-sense economics makes a lot of sense in capitalist economics -- where waste and productivity are essentially synonymous.  While the effect of capitalist economics is to maximize the rate at which resources are used up, the effect of common-sense economics is to make the most sensible use of resources. [p.172]

Banks, insurance companies, and financial institutions are corporations, and their facilities would be repossessed in the same way.  We would have little need of such institutions, freeing up nearly all of their facilities for other uses by their communities, and liberating the former employees for more useful occupations.  Similarly, government facilities would no longer be needed for the most part, and could be dedicated to more useful purposes. [p.175]

Some of those occupations could be gardener, chef, etc.

With the advent of civilization, the rate of our cultural evolution has been limited by elite-sponsored mythologies.  These mythologies have been relatively rigid, changing only when elites needed to adjust their system of control -- as when Henry VIII abandoned Catholicism, or capitalists adopted neoliberalism and the mythology of 'free trade.' [p.179]

Early societies needed rigid mythologies as an effective means of passing on successful cultural adaptations.  Hierarchical societies need relatively rigid mythologies in order to subjugate the people.  A democratic society has no need of mythology.  People can believe in myths if they want to, that's their sovereign right -- but the maintenance of a democratic society does not depend on everyone subscribing to one particular mythology.  This lack of enabling mythology is in fact the most revolutionary aspect of this particular cultural transformation.  Not only are we going back to before hierarchy began, but we are abandoning something that humans have always had: a relatively rigid, inherited culture. [p.180]

In our current societies, the primary role of 'education' is to fill the youth with disempowering myths and condition them to the practical requirements of a regimented society.  Indeed, general public 'education' was not established until industrialism came along, requiring a literate work force that could understand and obey complex instructions.  Before that, illiteracy had served as one more mechanism to subjugate the masses.  In a democratic society, we can restore education to the original meaning of the word.  The word comes from educe, which means to bring out or develop something latent or potential.  Instead of force-feeding children myths and 'useful facts,' we can seek to bring out their innate wisdom and allow their learning to be guided by their innate curiosity.  There have been educational pioneers who have applied such educational methods in today's societies, and the results have been remarkable.

When children are programmed with myths, then as adults they are constrained by those myths.  To the extent children are liberated from myths, they as adults will be that much closer to personal and psychological liberation. [p.182]

One of the things we will discover, in a society that is governed for the benefit of the people, is that we have been working entirely too hard.  It is not our needs that force us to work ten hours a day or more, but rather the needs of capitalism.  The scarcity that we experience in our lives is an artificial scarcity, required so that elites can extract profits from our labor. [p.184]

Many social visionaries today believe that personal transformation is necessary before social transformation can be attempted.  I suggest that this is a disempowering myth, a means of subjugation just like our other myths.  It inhibits us from pursuing social transformation and it blames us, the victims, for a society that has in fact been fashioned by elites for their own benefit.

This necessity of personal transformation myth can be seen as a vestige of the religious myth of original sin.  the myth fails to recognize that the deficiencies in our current level of personal consciousness are due not to our inherent natures, but are largely the result of systematic conditioning.  If the conditioning is removed, the path to personal transformation will be a far easier one. [p.185]

While I agree with the author's analysis, I am not certain that much can be accomplished through a public effort to change the entire system.  Rather, I am inclined to think that you can create more sustainable systems within the system that will be so attractive that they will over time entice more and more individuals to a sustainable lifestyle.  To summarize my thinking thus far:  I think that a viable system must not utilize debt (most payments within the system would be capital payments; no more rentiers), has to reorganize the concept of residential infrastructure to one that is more resort-like, and all administration/leadership should be on a volunteer basis.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

A few excerpts from this entertaining and enlightening book:

But in the end this book is a book about the pleasures of eating, the kinds of pleasure that are only deepened by knowing. [p.11]

I would submit that most pleasures are only deepened by knowing.  We have developed a culture of ignorance that encourages us to stop learning.  As a consequence, we miss out on an activity that some experts claim is better than sex.

Drawing on the theories of Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, [Allan] Nation [in Stockman Grass Farmer] had distinguished between industrial and artisanal enterprises to demonstrate why attempts to blend the two modes seldom succeed.  Industrial farmers are in the business of selling commodities, he explained, a business where the only viable competitive strategy is to be the least-cost producer.  The classic way any industrial producer lowers the costs of his product is by substituting capital -- new technologies and fossil-fuel energy -- for skilled labor and then stepping up production, exploiting the economies of scale to compensate for shrinking profit margins.  In a commodity business a producer must sell ever more cheaply and grow ever bigger or be crushed by a competitor who does.

Nation contrasted this industrial model with its polar opposite, what he calls "artisanal production," where the competitive strategy is based on selling something special rather than being the least-cost producer of a commodity.  Stressing that "productivity and profits are two entirely different concepts," Nation suggests that even a small producer can be profitable so long as he's selling an exceptional product and keeping his expenses down.  Yet this artisanal [not yet a word according to typepad's dictionary] model works only so long as it doesn't attempt to replace skilled labor with capital; it must not grow for the sake of growth; it should not strive for uniformity in its products but rather make a virtue of variation and seasonality; it shouldn't invest capital to reach national markets but rather should focus on local markets, relying on reputation and word of mouth rather than on advertising; and lastly it should rely as much as possible on free solar energy rather than costly fossil fuels. [p.249]

"Eat your view!" is a bumper sticker often seen in Europe these days; as it implies, the decision to eat locally is an act of conservation, too, one that is probably more effective (and sustainable) than writing checks to environmental organizations. [p.258]

All of which is to say that a successful local food economy implies not only a new kind of food producer, but a new kind of eater as well, one who regards finding, preparing, and preserving food as one of the pleasures of life rather than a chore. [p.259]

It is highly unlikely that society will produce those who have the will to prepare -- let alone the skills -- meals overnight.

"We don't have to beat them," Joel [Salatin] patiently explained.  "I'm not even sure we should try.  We don't need a law against McDonald's or a law against slaughterhouse abuse -- we ask too much salvation by legislation.  All we need to do is empower individuals with the right philosophy and the right information to opt out en masse. [p.260]

A tension has always existed between the capitalist imperative to maximize efficiency at any cost and the moral imperatives of culture, which historically have served as a counterweight to the moral blindness of the market.  This is another example of the cultural contradictions of capitalism -- the tendency over time for the economic impulse to erode the moral underpinnings of society.  Mercy towards the animals in our care is one such casualty. [p.318]

I might add that lack of knowledge has contributed towards the lack of mercy towards wild animals as well.  There are those who permit their well-fed domestic cats to prey on the birds in the neighborhood.  These same people proudly display a "Wild Washington [State]" label on their license plate.

Applied knowledge is truly a wonderful thing.