Via Democracy Now
Tag Archives | post-scarcity
In Praise of Anarchy
Part II (Part I can be found here) from Club Orlov. Raises some very salient points about the ecological nature of Anarchism.
When confronted with an increasingly despotic régime, the good people of almost any nation will cower in their homes and, once they are flushed out, will allow themselves to be herded like domesticated animals. They will gladly take orders from whoever gives them, because their worst fear is not despotism—it is anarchy. Anarchy! Are you afraid of anarchy? Or are you more afraid of hierarchy? Color me strange, but I am much more afraid of being subjected to a chain of command than of anarchy (which is a lack of hierarchy).
Mind you, this is not an irrational fear, but comes from a lifetime of studying nature, human as well as the regular kind, and of working within hierarchically organized organizations as well as some anarchically organized ones.
The Post-Scarcity Economy: What Is It And How Do We Get There?
An interview with Jason Stoddard, writer, blogger, and self-proclaimed “evil marketer,” via Edge of Tomorrow:
EOT: Hi there, Jason. Could you please define a scarcity economy and how it might differ from a post-scarcity economy?
Stoddard: Well, I can be flip and say, “A scarcity economy is when you have to work to buy some things you want, and a post-scarcity economy is where you don’t have to work to have everything you want.”
But it hides the nuances. Right now we all think we’re living in a scarcity economy: you have to work to get money, which there never seems to be enough of, and then you have to use your money to buy stuff, which always has a price tag, and even after you buy stuff, you might wonder how your consumption is going to affect the environment. Everything is presupposed to be scarce: money, things, resources.
