Comments jtellerelsberg has made

  • Not necessarily a "waste" product

    Hi Umbra,

    Though I am also a big fan of straw bale construction [and a conflict of interest alert: I work for Chelsea Green Publishing, publishers of books on straw bale construction (among other topics)], I'd hesitate to refer to straw merely as a "waste" product. Failure to return at least some decent quantity of straw to the soil from whence it grew would result in reduced organic matter and poorer soils--and so force growers to rely more heavily on artificial fertilizers and irrigation. At the current rate of straw bale construction I'm sure it's not an issue, but if there were a large increase in the number of straw bale buildings, we could face a serious trade-off issue between "eco" buildings and healthy soils.On Umbra on straw-bale homes posted 1 year, 1 month ago 11 Responses

  • Capitalism isn't just a "theory"

    Stephanie, you have misunderstood what capitalism is--a mistake that many make (so you're in good company :) ). Capitalism isn't just some "theory" of the economy. It is a real thing, even though intangible. Capitalism is made up by the laws governing ownership of productive materials and resources. It is made up by the cultural attitudes and patterns of behavior of people in the way they relate to work, to their boss, to their employees, to what they believe is appropriate for the intersection of politics and economics. It is made up by the institutions and systems of business and commerce. Obviously, that covers a lot of ground, which is why (among other reasons) people like Speth talk about different forms of Capitalism, some for better and some for worse. Anyway, all this means that Capitalism is something to be considered in its own right--it's not nearly as passive a thing as an inanimate object like a hammer. The way that Capitalism is shaped and put together create pressures on people to behave certain ways, so it's wrong to say that Capitalism is just at the mercy of how the person uses it. You can't just ignore the ownership structure of Capitalism when you have a boss you don't like. You can't just "use" the tool of Capitalism to have either one relationship to the stock owners of the company you work for or another relationship. They own the company--end of story. They want the stock price to rise and they want dividends--end of story. If you have to be told to work harder, work longer, accept a pay cut, accept cuts to your benefits, or lose your job entirely to satisfy the demands of the owners--end of story. Changing the owners does not change the structure of corporate capitalism. Just as "power corrupts," ownership in a corporate society induces people to behave in ways they wouldn't necessarily choose to if they thought about it or had the individual choice. The long and short: Speth and Mazzocchi are right to think about the system itself and what ways might be necessary to change the system if you want an ecologically sustainable world. That doesn't mean the answers they arrived at are necessarily right, only that they're right, at least, to ask the question.

    "We have changed the world, and we wonder why things won't stay the same." --Les Lanyon

    On Ted Glick on two new books that address capitalism and the environment posted 1 year, 6 months ago 8 Responses