<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for Vandana Shiva’s powerful <em>Soil Not Oil</em>]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by Sharon Astyk http://www.grist.org/article/Edible-Media-Delectable-food-politics-books-of-08-part-I/ Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:17:02 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/Edible-Media-Delectable-food-politics-books-of-08-part-I/1 Shiva Cannot Be Encapsulated

I'm glad to see this post, and this book being drawn to attention.  Shiva actually deserves credit not as our global south agrarian, but as our the closest thing to a world-level public intellectual we've really got.  In this book and really all of her books, she strips down to is fundamentally intellectual vacancy the widely and uncritically accepted notion of the tragedy of the commons, and undermines it as a basis for much public thought.  IMHO, the uncritical acceptance of Hardin has done more to inform a whole host of things about America in the last 20 years, than most ideas have - and Shiva offers (and reoffers, and reoffers until it penetrates) a scathing, articulate and powerful critique of a deeply wrongheaded and fundamentally destructive area of thought.

Sharon

Sharon, with dirt under her fingernails.

]]> Shiva Cannot Be Encapsulated

I'm glad to see this post, and this book being drawn to attention.  Shiva actually deserves credit not as our global south agrarian, but as our the closest thing to a world-level public intellectual we've really got.  In this book and really all of her books, she strips down to is fundamentally intellectual vacancy the widely and uncritically accepted notion of the tragedy of the commons, and undermines it as a basis for much public thought.  IMHO, the uncritical acceptance of Hardin has done more to inform a whole host of things about America in the last 20 years, than most ideas have - and Shiva offers (and reoffers, and reoffers until it penetrates) a scathing, articulate and powerful critique of a deeply wrongheaded and fundamentally destructive area of thought.

Sharon

Sharon, with dirt under her fingernails.

]]> Comment #2 by Bart Anderson http://www.grist.org/article/Edible-Media-Delectable-food-politics-books-of-08-part-I/ Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:55:55 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/Edible-Media-Delectable-food-politics-books-of-08-part-I/2 Hardin

Sharon Astyk writes: "the uncritical acceptance of Hardin"

Hear, hear!  

What strikes me now is how bad the social science is in the essay. When I discussed the essay with an archaeologist friend, he just rolled his eyes.

History and anthropology were not Hardin's fields, and he never did much research in them.  This did not stop him from making sweeping generalizations.

The appeal of Hardin's essay is two-fold.  First, there is a tendency for commons to be degraded as he described. However, there are other social factors that operate in the opposite direction.  And the exact mechanism of degradation depends on the social system.  For example, peasant agriculture is different from globalized capitalism.

People who want to make generalizations about societies should really get some basic background first.

The second reason for Hardin's appeal is that it played to the prejudices against the Commons.  

A recent critique (actually a summary of the critiques):
The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons
Part II

Bart
Energy Bulletin



]]> Hardin

Sharon Astyk writes: "the uncritical acceptance of Hardin"

Hear, hear!  

What strikes me now is how bad the social science is in the essay. When I discussed the essay with an archaeologist friend, he just rolled his eyes.

History and anthropology were not Hardin's fields, and he never did much research in them.  This did not stop him from making sweeping generalizations.

The appeal of Hardin's essay is two-fold.  First, there is a tendency for commons to be degraded as he described. However, there are other social factors that operate in the opposite direction.  And the exact mechanism of degradation depends on the social system.  For example, peasant agriculture is different from globalized capitalism.

People who want to make generalizations about societies should really get some basic background first.

The second reason for Hardin's appeal is that it played to the prejudices against the Commons.  

A recent critique (actually a summary of the critiques):
The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons
Part II

Bart
Energy Bulletin



]]> Comment #3 by Jon Rynn http://www.grist.org/article/Edible-Media-Delectable-food-politics-books-of-08-part-I/ Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:34:34 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/Edible-Media-Delectable-food-politics-books-of-08-part-I/3 Particularly since indigenous peoples

are often good stewards of their ecosystems, as for instance the Menominee of Wisconsin with their forest.  Rainforest Action Network calls for indigenous peoples to be given property rights of rainforest areas as a solution to the problem of deforestation, and there is certainly plenty of data within Paul Hawken's "Blessed Unrest" to support the idea, where appropriate.

]]> Particularly since indigenous peoples

are often good stewards of their ecosystems, as for instance the Menominee of Wisconsin with their forest.  Rainforest Action Network calls for indigenous peoples to be given property rights of rainforest areas as a solution to the problem of deforestation, and there is certainly plenty of data within Paul Hawken's "Blessed Unrest" to support the idea, where appropriate.

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