Showing posts with label mutual aid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mutual aid. Show all posts

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Anarchist Economics

This years Nobel prize in economics was given to an American Political Economist who for all intents and purposes espouses the anarchist economics of community control, mutual aid and direct action. While much attention has been given to the fact that this was first time a woman was given the award much commentary has been that this was another Euro slap at the rampant liberaltarian free market economics of the U.S. In fact Elinor Ostrom's political economic analysis is far more libertarian than the apologists for U.S. capitalism.

Professor Ostrom - who shares the prize with Oliver Williamson of the University of California, Berkeley - has spent much of her career challenging the view that when people share a finite resource, they will inevitably end up destroying it. This widely held belief, known as the tragedy of the commons, is used to support arguments for tighter regulation or even privatisation.

She has approached the argument from an unusual perspective, too. Through her study of the way that natural resources have been managed around the world, she has found that, left to manage resources on their own and given the right support, local people often develop the most effective methods of sustainable development.

“We have a team of people studying forestry in 200 cities around the world. This is very big study, trying to understand why some forests have just disappeared and others have been sustained. We started in 1992. We have been able to go back and go back and go back to get very good data sets.

“Our findings are that some local people who have had long-term assurances of harvesting rights are able to manage forests more effectively than people who do not have the same assurances. The lessons are that when regulation comes from a distant authority and is uniform for a very large region, it is not likely to succeed.”

Professor Ostrom - whose doctorate is in political science and who considers herself a political economist - will not be drawn to comment on hot political issues, such as the push for tighter regulation of Wall Street or the perennial question of American healthcare. They are, she says, not her field.

But she does have a message for government: “The big message is that we need to have respect for the capabilities of humans living all over the world, not just those occupying high positions,” she said. “It’s not that we want to get rid of government. It’s about getting rid of the idea that government can solve everything.”

To this end, she is a firm supporter of direct action. “I have recently written a paper on global warming and argued that we should not sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for someone to do something. We should act now. There is a lot we can all do at all levels,” she said.




Monday, October 27, 2008

Mutual Aid Down Under


Leo the dog made world news yesterday for saving a litter of kittens in a house fire in Melbourne. People are alsways surprised by altruism in nature and especially interspecies solidarity. Proving again Kropotkin's theory of Mutual Aid.
And in this case a male dog refused to abandon helpless young kittens, showing that nuturing is not simply a matter of biological destiny,mothering, males too nuture the young.

Compassion is a necessary outcome of social life. But compassion also means
a considerable advance in general intelligence and sensibility. It is the first
step towards the development of higher moral sentiments. It is, in its turn, a
powerful factor of further evolution.
Chapter 2 Mutual Aid Among Animals
Mutual Aid: A Factor of
Evolution

Peter Kropotkin 1902


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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Coren Is An Idiot

The evidence is in. In black and white. Michael Coren is an idiot.

And why he has a
TV and Radio Talk Show let alone a column in the Sun newspapers shows the shallow depths of the social conservative right wing will dredge to find someone, anyone, who will say anything to cause a controversy.

His opinion on matters is usually outrageous, but the ultimate off the wall comment is his latest column. All 'opinion' and reaction, and being a reactionary of course he will excuse himself, with no factual basis to back up his assertions.

Though you will find his opinion of animals, animal rights and the glorious animal husbandry of farmers shared by members of the Federal Conservative Government as well as rural MLA's and right wingers in the West.

I will excerpt the stupidest and most moronic of his statements. They are not suitable for young children, people with weak hearts, or folks with any heart.

They are the ramblings of mental case who would not matter if he did not have access to the media because they are desperate for right wing commentators to offset the supposed dominance of liberal left news bias.

OK, the evidence is in.

People who are obsessed with the welfare of animals and become hysterical when they hear about a dog or cat being abused are mentally ill.

No need here for compromise or silliness. Animal rights types are mentally ill.

Good God, get a grip! People matter more than animals.

Even bad people matter more than animals.

No relativism please, no soppy arguments about cute puppies compared to mass murderers.

The human spirit and soul is unique and deserves respect, dignity and reverence.

FOR US TO USE

Animals, on the other hand, are there to be used. Not abused, but used. So we can eat them, wear their skins, experiment on them if we can thus improve the human condition.

A million kittens do not one human life make. So if by testing medication on a million kittens we can find a cure for cancer, we should have not a second's pause.

Animals have no rights, but we have responsibilities. To treat them properly.

Farmers do this best because they treat them precisely as animals. Keep them fed and warm, show them affection and care, make them better when sick, but kill them if need be.

But not little Rover or cuddly Whiskers. Because they are dumb they must be special and because they give us pleasure they must be kind. Nonsense. Animals can be cruel, are invariably selfish and exist for us and not us for them.


And right wing columnists who claim to speak for the unborn can be cruel, dumb but must be given special privileges because they speak for those who have yet to exist. And like their fantasy worlds of the before life and after life, they condemn those who live in the here and now to their medieval ideal of hierarchy, man above animals, the King above human rights, and God above Man.

I would be remiss if I did not correct Coren's misleading allegations, assertions, and distortions

Not that he reads my blog, but rather because a letter to the editor while short and pithy does little to refute his over the top column.

First what got Coren's goat was the incident in Toronto this past week. Or more correctly not the incident itself but the reactions to it.

An idiot left his dog in his car with the windows rolled up on a very hot day. The car became a hotbox and the dog's brain was boiling. A Humane Society officer rescued the dog and in the process was confronted by the dogs owner, who interfered in the rescue.

The Humane Officer handcuffed him to his car and took the dog to the emergency vet clinic. The idiot who was broiling his dogs brain seems to have attracted some attention to his blight, and got beat up. As a result the Humane Society officer was suspended from his job. A protest in support of him ensued and Coren considers this an indication animal advocates mental illness.

The real sufferers of mental illness are those who would leave animals in a hot car with the windows closed. And contrary to Coren's relativist assertion that animals are less relevant than humans, these same brain dead types are also the folks who leave children in their cars.

Animal abusers often become human abusers, in fact they often become serial killers, as forensic psychologists will tell you.

And clearly this is the case in Edmonton currently.

Edmonton task force seeking serial cat-killer

Of course using Coren's illogic the police are wasting their time, since;" A million kittens do not one human life make."

Coren's illogic is frighteningly similar to the Nazi's belief that untermenschen were not humans. Once you have determined that there is a difference between humans and the 'other'; animals or humans, you are on that slippery slope to mass species genocide.

Animals have sentience, intelligence through learning, calculative thought processes, communication abilities, etc. But for Coren this matters not they are just dumb animals. It has recently been documented that dogs have the ability to remember hundreds of words, and that in human terms they have the intelligence of a three year old.

Elephants, dolphins, monkeys and apes all cogitate, that is have the capacity to learn, and now we are finding they use tools. Humans domesticated animals in a symbiotic relationship, horses, oxen, dogs, cats, etc. Not by force but through mutual aid to meet each others needs.

It was with development of capitalist agriculture that animals were seen as beasts of burden, not unlike the indentured servant, the serf and slave, those who were disposed of their land due to the English encroachment acts.

When Coren praises farmers as having a sympathetic understanding of the animals in their care, one must be forgiven for LOL. Farmers, ranchers and the like view their animals as property just as their fore bearers did. One can see the sympathetic treatment of animals at the rodeo, where horses who 'would be sold for horse meat" are sacrificed in the horror show that is chuckwagon races.

Coren's over the top rant is not much different from the arguments put forward by Reform/Alliance/Conservative MP Myron Thompson who has opposed strengthening Canada's woefully inadeuate animal protection laws, in order to protect rodeos. The laws concerning animal cruelty date back to 1892.

Since he claims to be a convert to Catholicism I would remind Coren of the venerable Saint Francis of Assisi who saw all creatures as part of Gods Creation, and not dumb animals to be processed, mutilated, tortured, abused, etc. Of course Saint Francis is not Coren's kind of Catholic, since he also was a pacifist as well as animal rights activist.

And speaking of St. Francis of Assisi, and dumb animals, this coyote proves Coren wrong.


Chicago City Animal Care and Control workers unsuccessfully tried Monday afternoon to catch a coyote that has been running wild in the Lincoln Park neighborhood for several days.

For two hours, three workers in three trucks couldn't grab the coyote that ran near children, dog walkers and eventually Cardinal Francis George's residence in the nearby Gold Coast neighborhood. At one point, the animal rested near a statue of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and the environment.

Workers finally gave up their hunt when the coyote slipped away again into a backyard area of George's home.


Dumb animal indeed. Gave dem workers da slip. And knowing Chicago is a Sanctuary City, this illegal alien sought sanctuary from Saint Francis and on Catholic Church property. Indeed Chicago has the largest urban coyote population in North America. That is one Wiley E. Coyote.


SEE:

Animal Crimes

Katrina: It's a Dog-Gone Crime

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright

We Love Animals


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Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Heroic Tails


Humans tend to be species chauvinists when it comes to recognizing animal sentience, until this happens that a family pet rescues someone.

Which is not unusual for companion animals; "People don't give their animals enough credit for being smart."

When it is unusual is when it occurs with wild animals. But again it goes to prove that domestication is less important than interspecies solidarity; mutual aid which is the basis of natural society.


Pet's the cat's meow after hall of fame induction

A year-old cat was hailed as a hero yesterday and inducted into the Purina Animal Hall of Fame for waking a Morinville boy before he slipped into diabetic shock.

"I think that's awesome," said Morinville Coun. Pat Krauskopf. "It's not very often you hear about animals coming through like that."

March 27, 2006, Alex Rose was asleep in his Morinville home, 47 km north of Edmonton, when Mel-O, climbed a five-foot ladder and repeatedly pounced on the boy.

Mel-O was the only cat awarded yesterday with a medal of bravery, while three dogs received the honour.

Adrift, alone, but for Echo

Floating unconscious in the frigid waters of Lake Huron, her body temperature in the 20s, blood sugar dangerously low, Tish Smith was close to being claimed by the great lake. But Echo wouldn't allow it.

After their canoe was capsized by a two-metre wave during a freak summer storm that swept over the massive lake last July, the 4-year-old German shepherd-collie mix refused to let her owner die.


Hero dog showered with love

Jango the golden retriever has been hailed a hero dog.

The Trail dog roused his master from a deep sleep by barking to alert him that his house was on fire.

Owner Darrell Unger woke to Jango's persistent barking to find his house filling with smoke.

Five-year-old Koby Unger of Trail looks on as his family's dog, Jango, basks in the attention after his induction yesterday into the Purina Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Five-year-old Koby Unger of Trail looks on as his family's dog, Jango, basks in the attention after his induction yesterday into the Purina Hall of Fame in Toronto.

In the past 39 years, the hall of fame has honoured 133 animals, including 109 dogs, 23 cats and a horse.


SEE:

Damn Cat

Dogs Are Not Wolves

Katrina: It's a Dog-Gone Crime

Elephants Cogitate



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Friday, May 04, 2007

Your Breakfast Cup of Coffee


A tip of the hat to the Adam Smith's Lost Legacy blog where I have been debating the author. He pointed out a link to this site where I found this interesting article which shows that the coffee marketplace in Africa is run not by corporate or state capitalism but by village cooperatives. As anarchist mutualists would point out the Cooperative Commonwealth is the Free Market.

And the support of coffee production in Africa based on the cooperative and sustainable farming is Fair Trade ala Adam Smith. As the other articles appended show.

State Power, Entrepreneurship, and Coffee: The Rwandan Experience

In Rwanda, the coffee industry has played a particularly important role in the country's development. For many years, coffee was Rwanda's top export and chief source of foreign exchange income. In the twenty-first century the industry remains important: it provides a livelihood for some 500,000 Rwandan families, many of whom work in cooperatives and grow coffee on small plots on the country's hillsides.

In the past two decades, this important sector of the Rwandan economy has been transformed from a highly controlled, politicized industry to a liberalized sector that is quickly developing a prized niche product: specialty coffee. While the industry is benefiting from increased entrepreneurship and freer trade, the people who work in the coffee industry are also benefiting. They are developing wider trading relations, improving skills, increasing their standard of living and, most importantly, finding a path towards reconciliation--all thanks to increased opportunities to sell their product. Freeing the coffee industry from excessive government regulation and control is directly helping to free the people of this country from poverty and conflict.

The rise of the specialty coffee market in Rwanda presents an exciting research opportunity, for this market developed in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. It is providing the means for individuals, whose lives were devastated by conflict, to improve conditions for themselves, their families, and their communities. Rwandan coffee growers are competing with other coffee producers to improve their product, expand their knowledge of the worldwide coffee market, and increase demand for their goods.

Uganda: Serving 1000 Cups of Coffee


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Uganda: Great African Coffee Steams Its Way to Europe, S. Africa

The farmers who transport their coffee to the GAC offices in Kasese on bicycles and pick up trucks before the long process commences get paid Ush3, 500 ($1.94) per kilogramme, translating into 30% to 40% above the market price

Available statistics indicate that a kilogramme of Arabica on the international market costs about $2.70 (Ush4, 860), while GAC fetches $2.88 (Ush5, 184) a kilogramme. One kilogramme of the beans produces 330 grammes of instant coffee and 800 grammes of roast and ground coffee. In 2006, GAC bought over 460 tonnes of washed Arabica coffee, which experts say, is among the best quality in the region.

This quantity, Rugasira told Business Week is anticipated to hit the 1,000 tonne mark worth Ush3.5 billion ($1.94 million) at the end of 2007. 110 tonnes were bought in 2004 with 2005 registering an improvement at 190 tonnes of washed coffee. An acre on average produces about 300 kilogrammes of coffee beans per season.

The optimistic Rugasira anticipates that GAC will attract a higher premium when German based firm, BSC Oko-Garantie GmbH certifies it as organic. He also hopes that his company will list on the Uganda bourse within the next five years with priority for shares going to the farmers.

Before GAC came into the equation, farmers were using the obsolete dry processing method of removing the outer skin of the bean, which while producing a reasonable Arabica cup, does not come close to matching the quality of the wet processed Arabica beans.

The UK's Observer Food Monthly (OFM) in its November 2005 editorial written by respected food and beverage critic Nigel Slater said of Rugasira; "Both a business leader and father figure, he has helped thousands of farmers to give themselves a steady income and provide them with the knowledge that they are at last being given a fair price for their coffee,"

Companies today cannot survive the stiff and dynamic business environment without a pro- active corporate social responsibility programme; GAC is involved in six community projects centred on education, environment, charity and micro finance.

Sipping on the last bits of my rich coffee like a Bohemian, I looked around at the excited farmers, hugging, congratulating and smiling at each other. In all this action, I could see the unlimited opportunities unveiled by the raw beans these farmers at the primary end of the value chain toil with, all year round.

Coffee pack shoot

Africa will never be transformed by handouts, we must solve our own problems and that is what we are doing

• Good African Coffee is unique because it is owned and managed by Africans. It is about us helping ourselves through Trade and not charity

• We are committed to our people not only because it is part of our value system but it also makes smart business sense

• We produce excellent quality products and are committed to bringing you the best that Africa has to offer

• Consumers demand greater accountability and transparency from ethically trading companies – Good African Coffee pledges to satisfy that demand

Kenya: Starbucks Finally Wakes Up And Smells the Coffee

Starbucks to double Africa coffee purchases






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Friday, February 23, 2007

Another Dirty Little Secret

Science and Shamanism combine in the unusual discovery of our Lady of Flores aka the Hobbit.

The people of Flores follow an unusual mix of Catholicism and ancestor worship. Sacrificing chickens and reading their entrails was all in a day's work for the archaeologists to ensure their digs proceeded smoothly, with the invaluable help of local villagers.


Catholicism fits well with Ancestor Worship since both deal with veneration of the dead over the living. And Christianity and Ancestor Worship arise from guilt over murder.

Morwood and van Oosterzee now believe our species, modern humans, killed the hobbits about 12,000 years ago.

Another dirty little secret revealed? So the humans occupying the area having race memories realize them through religion.

This was the time of the Stone Age, and for the scientists to assume this is an obvious modernist bias. Like this....

No final word ... the disputed picture of a male hobbit, which became the defining image of the new species.

No final word ... the disputed picture of a male hobbit,
which became the defining image of the new species.

Disputed is right this is a male and so far the archaeological remains found are female, hence our Lady of Flores. This is her undisputed skull.

Homo floresiensis (Liang Bua Cave, Indonesia) and a modern human skull
Homo floresiensis (Liang Bua Cave, Indonesia)
and a modern human skull

And here is the result of the female skull being fleshed out...

















But at least we now accept that they are a different species of humans. That was still being contested last fall.

And like the Neanderthals before them, they were wiped out by colonizers say the scientists. Imperialism and War are the natural outcome of Homo Sapiens need to dominate and colonize.

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The hobbit pre-dates modern peoples in the region. Though race memory may create a zeitgeist in the wilderness, a hint, a legend, a myth of people who came before. The little people of legend. This is what the shaman experiences in their trance state. It is after all one of our oldest cross cultural beliefs.

This just another cultural/historical conjecture by scientists, based on little evidence and theorizing, speculating, hypothesizing, a priori on looking backwards from todays culture of war and Imperialism. After all they are still contesting the evidence that Our Lady of Flores is a different species.

So this assumption is contestable as well. The fact that humans and our hominid relatives existed side by side does not mean that we killed them off. There is just as much evidence for mutual co-existence, as Kropotkin asserts in his work Mutual Aid, and assimilation, as there is that we wiped out Neandertal.

It appears that our closest living relatives in the primate world are now also discovering tool making , and experiencing their own Primate Stone Age,including the making of spears.
Chimps using spears to hunt bushbabies

And like our Lady of Flores, the female of the species stands out in this as well.

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This new information on chimpanzee tool use has important implications for the evolution of tool use and construction for hunting in the earliest hominids, especially given our observations that females and immature chimpanzees exhibited this behavior more frequently than adult males.

Mistaking tool use for weapons use has been a common problem amongst anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of religion.

A case in point is William Irwin Thompson's expose of an ancient neolithic shaman's (male) warrior spear which he speculates is not, but is actually a woman shamans lunar calendar calculated on menstrual cycles and womens collective dream time.

Pruetz noted that male chimps never used the spears. She believes the males use their greater strength and size to grab food and kill prey more easily, so the females must come up with other methods.

And to defend themselves and their babies from more aggressive males.

Maria Gimbutas suggests that during the period of Our Lady of Flores and after there was a long period of matriarchal cultural development, which was not based on later armed male nomadic warfare, but settled peaceful civilizing of the world.

There remains no scientific evidence that humans wiped out Our Lady of Flores, they could have assimilated or have been wiped out by disease, lack of food, natural disasters, etc.

It is idle speculation like this that moves beyond science into science fiction. Just like 2001 a Space Odyssey.

http://www.actuabd.com/IMG/jpg/Kirby2001-01.jpg




See;

Primates

Neandertal


Apes

Evolution


Primates

Magick

Shamanism


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Sunday, February 04, 2007

Anarchism In Action


Many folks have seen Avi Lewis and Naomi Kleins NFB film The Take, here is a report on the mass self-valorization movement in Argentina and the people who took direct action and direct control of their lives and communities after the collapse of the IMF regime in their country.

It is an example of anarchism in action, the creation of use value, hence self-valorization, and the elimination of exchange values, money-capital-money, for a barter system. Which pre-dates capitalism and is known as the gift economy.


The story begins in 2001, when the Argentine economy collapsed under pressure of IMF demands. Unemployment reached 35 percent. Direct action movements of unemployed workers known as “piqueteros,” mostly women, began blocking highways and then negotiating with the authorities for subsistence programs and public works employment.

The example of the “piqueteros” spread to a more and more disgruntled population. Discontent came to a head as the government accepted even greater austerity demands from the IMF and imposed a state of siege to suppress popular protest. Every bank account in the country was frozen. On the night of December 19, 2001, people from all over Buenos Aires took to the streets banging pts and plans and marched on Congress and the presidential palace. The next day, spontaneous street demonstrations forced Fernando de la Rua to resign the presidency. People throughout the country from diverse class backgrounds began meeting in “self-convened neighborhood assemblies.”

In the context of the crisis, people began improvising new economic institutions. New bakeries and gardens began providing food, often with support and distribution through the neighborhood assemblies. Soon five to seven million people were involved in barter networks, trading not only basic goods but also services – for example, psychoanalysis for computer repair. They also began taking over abandoned buildings, notably banks, and reopening them as neighborhood centers.

Meanwhile, many bosses stopped paying their workers and eventually closed their workplaces. The idea of taking over the workplaces emerged in response. One textile worker says the takeover at the Brukman factory “wasn’t an occupation at first, but it became one without us intending it.”

“Together, everyone in the factory thought about our situation, and decided to stay to see if the bosses would decide to give us a little money so we could celebrate the holidays with our families. . . . We waited two months for the bosses to come back. We went to the unions, the Ministry of Work, all with the intention of getting the boss to come back and offer us a solution. He never came. So we decided to work.”

At the Chilavert printing factory,

“When we realized that they were going to come and take the machines, well, then we had to make a decision. The time for thinking had ended and we took over the workplace. . . You know that if they take the machines from you, you’ll end up on the street. It’s a reflex – you don’t think about cooperatives, you don’t think about anything. Defending your source of work is a reflex.”

More than 200 such “recuperated workplaces” are currently in operation. Almost all were closed, abandoned, in bankruptcy, and/or in debt and in arrears in payments to their employees. Seventy percent were initiated in the 2001-2 period, but such takeovers are still occurring. Most are in the Buenos Aires area, but others are scattered in all parts of the country. They employ about 10,000 workers in total.

See:

Workers Control

Self-Management

Anarchism

Latin America





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